Taliban Killings Fuel Fear, Force People To Flee, Reports Say

Reports of targeted killings in areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fueling fears that they will return Afghanistan to the repressive rule they imposed when they were last in power, even as they urged imams to push a message of unity at weekly prayers, Ahmad Seir, Tameem Akhgar and Rebecca Santana reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: City workers clean up the rubbish at the Kabul international airport left by people fleeing Afghanistan.

An Amnesty International report provided more evidence Friday that undercut the Taliban’s claims they have changed. The rights group said that its researchers spoke to eyewitnesses in Ghazni province who recounted how the Taliban killed nine ethnic Hazara men in the village of Mundarakht from July 4 to July 6. It said six of the men were shot, and three were tortured to death.

Hazaras are Shiite Muslims who were previously persecuted by the Taliban and who made major gains in education and social status in recent years.

Amnesty International warned that more killings may have gone unreported because the Taliban cut cellphone services in many areas they captured. Separately, Reporters without Borders expressed alarm at the news that Taliban fighters killed a family member of an Afghan journalist working for Germany’s Deutsche Welle on Wednesday.

The broadcaster said fighters conducted house-to-house searches for their reporter, who had already relocated to Germany.

Meanwhile, a Norway-based private intelligence group that provides information to the United Nations said it obtained evidence that the Taliban have rounded up Afghans on a blacklist of people they believe worked in key roles with the previous Afghan administration or with US-led forces.

In an email, the executive director of the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses said the organization knew about several threat letters sent to Afghans.

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