Taliban fighters have allegedly killed the relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist in Afghanistan, the German state broadcaster said, as the Islamist militants intensified their hunt for reporters, dissidents and people associated with western forces or the former government.
Deutsche Welle said that the Taliban conducted a house-to-house search for the journalist, who was not identified and is based in Germany, according to the broadcaster. The Islamist insurgents shot dead one of his relatives and “seriously injured” another. The outlet added that the militants have raided the homes of at least three more of its journalists.
The allegations seriously undermined the Taliban’s claims that it would not retaliate against perceived dissidents and those who worked for US, Nato and Afghan armed forces and President Ashraf Ghani’s erstwhile government.
The militants’ efforts to present a more moderate image since they swept into power on Sunday have been contradicted by repeated reports of beatings and killings at the hands of victorious fighters.
Peter Limbourg, DW’s director-general, said the killing “testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves. It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organised searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces.”
On Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Islamists were committed to a “free and independent” media and protecting women's’ rights as per their “cultural framework” and Islamic law. He said the group would offer amnesty to their opponents.
But a report prepared for the UN by the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a non-profit organisation, found that senior Taliban leaders had ordered fighters to hunt down people who worked for western forces or former Afghan authorities.
Christian Nellemann, the centre’s director, told the BBC that letters signed by the Taliban’s military commission instructed fighters to target families if the individuals did not turn themselves in.
Some of those people would have information on western operations that would be of interest to the Taliban and other foreign intelligence services, he said.
The Taliban did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US and UK have faced fierce criticism for not doing more to protect their citizens and Afghan allies as Taliban forces seized control of vast swaths of territory this month.
An internal US state department cable, first reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by the Financial Times, warned last month of Kabul’s imminent collapse in the wake of the US troop withdrawal.
The speed with which the Taliban toppled Ghani’s government has left thousands of Afghans associated with western powers at risk.
The US has sent more than 5,200 troops to Kabul to secure the airport, where desperate crowds are trying to escape the country. But it has struggled to control the evacuation, with Taliban fighters reportedly turning away those trying to flee.
The US has only evacuated 9,000 people since the weekend, far below its target of 9,000 per day.
Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, told NBC that getting Americans out of Afghanistan was “a risky operation”.
“We right now have established contact with the Taliban to allow for the safe passage of people to the airport and that is working at the moment to get Americans and Afghans at risk to the airport,” he said. “That being said, we can’t count on anything.”
The UK government also faced a backlash for not doing more to help its Afghan interpreters after it emerged that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, was on holiday during the Taliban offensive last week, delegating urgent calls on the matter to his junior.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzExOTY5YzNjLWQ5ZmYtNDRlZS05OWNlLTJlNDViNzAxMmMxM9IBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzExOTY5YzNjLWQ5ZmYtNDRlZS05OWNlLTJlNDViNzAxMmMxMw?oc=5
2021-08-20 05:44:55Z
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