As more Afghans continued to flee the country Friday, more reports of deadly Taliban attacks are coming to light. The video above shows planes and helicopters coming in and out of Kabul’s airport.
One of those reports of Taliban attacks comes from Amnesty International. The human rights group said its researchers spoke to eyewitnesses in Ghazni province. According to the witnesses the Taliban killed nine men in the village of Mundarakht between July 4 and July 6. Six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard called the killings “a reminder of the Taliban’s past record, and a horrifying indicator of what Taliban rule may bring.”
Meanwhile, Reporters without Borders responded to the news of Taliban fighters killing the family member of an Afghan journalist working for German news organization Deutsche Welle on Wednesday. Deutsche Welle said fighters conducted house-to-house searches for the journalist, who had already relocated to Germany at the time.
“Sadly, this confirms our worst fears,” Katja Gloger of Reporters without Borders’ German section said. “The brutal action of the Taliban show that the lives of independent media workers in Afghanistan are in acute danger.”
In addition to those reports, a Norway-based private intelligence group said it obtained evidence that indicates the Taliban have rounded up Afghans they believe worked in key roles with the Afghan government or with U.S. forces.
The executive director of RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses said it knew about several threat letters sent to Afghans, including a man the Taliban took from his Kabul apartment this week.
The Taliban say
they have become more moderate since they last ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s. They have pledged to restore security and forgive those who fought them in the 20 years since a U.S.-led invasion.
But many Afghans are skeptical. They fear the Taliban will erase any progress,
especially for women, achieved in the past two decades.
