Even after its leadership promised an amnesty, there is mounting evidence that the Taliban is cracking down on dissent in Afghanistan and carrying out reprisals, adding urgency to global efforts to evacuate those most at risk.
Fundamentalist fighters are looking for journalists in Kabul and other provinces, according to Deutsche Welle, which reported the death of a close relative of one of its journalists on Friday.
The Taliban have rounded up Afghans on a blacklist of people they believe worked with the previous Afghan administration or with US-led forces, according to a private intelligence group based in Norway that provides information to the UN.
In July, Amnesty International received witness accounts of nine ethnic minority members being executed, and warned that more killings are likely as the Taliban take control.
Thousands of people, desperate to flee the country, were still thronging the airport, according to a Reuters official, despite the Taliban’s call for people without legal travel documents to return home and the appearance of the Taliban blocking access to the airport.
“Taliban are intensifying the hunt-down of all individuals and collaborators with the former regime, and if unsuccessful, target and arrest the families and punish them according to their own interpretation of Sharia law,” said a report, dated Wednesday, by RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses.
“Particularly at risk are individuals in central positions in military, police and investigative units,” it added.
Thousands of people still need to be evacuated before the United States’ troop withdrawal deadline of August 31. Images and videos from the airport show people clinging to a taxing American military plane as it took off, sending several people – including an Afghan national athlete – plummeting to their deaths.
People were passing their children, including infants, over barb wire airport fences in an attempt to get them to safety outside of the country, officials in the UK told Sky News on Thursday.
