Taliban seek people who worked with Americans to arrest them, UN says



According to a UN report, the Taliban’s beautiful promises are just window dressing. A document drafted by a group of risk assessment experts for the United Nations assures that the insurgents who seized power in Afghanistan on Sunday intensified their search for people who worked with American and NATO forces. According to their report, the Taliban establish “priority lists” of individuals they wish to arrest.

Acts that go completely against what the fundamentalist Islamist movement announced on Tuesday at a press conference in Kabul. Their spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, had indeed promised “a general amnesty” for all and assured that the Afghans who worked for the West would not be prosecuted. “No one will chase them away, no one will ask them why they worked or translated for the United States. (…) I want to assure the international community that no one will be hurt ”, he declared, assuring that the adversaries were“ forgiven ”.

7,000 people evacuated by the US military since August 14

A speech aimed at reassuring the international community and the Afghans, but despite this, thousands of inhabitants are still trying to flee the country. About 7,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan by the US military since August 14, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday. In total, nearly 12,000 people have been evacuated since the end of July, he added. Among them, American citizens, members of the American embassy, ​​and Afghans who worked for the United States, in particular as interpreters for the American army, applying for a special immigration visa (SIV) out of fear retaliation from the Taliban.

According to the report written by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyzes, an organization providing intelligence reports to UN agencies, the Afghans most at risk are those who held senior positions in the Afghan armed forces, police and military personnel. intelligence units.

“Threatened with torture and execution”

The Taliban have carried out “targeted door-to-door visits” to individuals they want to arrest as well as to members of their families, the report said. According to the latter, the insurgents are screening individuals wishing to access Kabul airport, and have set up checkpoints in major cities, including the capital and Jalalabad. “They target the families of those who refuse to surrender, and prosecute and punish the families ‘according to sharia’,” said director of the Norwegian Center for Comprehensive Analysis, Christian Nellemann.

“We expect individuals who worked for US and NATO forces and their allies, as well as members of their families, to be threatened with torture and execution,” he added. “This will further jeopardize Western intelligence services, their networks, their methods, and their ability to counter both the Taliban, ISIS, and other terrorist threats in the future,” Christian Nellemann also said. According to the report, the insurgents are “quickly recruiting” new informants to collaborate with the Taliban regime and expanding their target lists by contacting mosques and brokers.

The army ready to “open additional entrances”

Faced with the influx of departing candidates who have flocked to Kabul airport since the Taliban seized power, the military “is ready” to increase air rotations and intends to “maximize the ability to fly. each plane “to evacuate the greatest number of people,” explained General Taylor. According to this senior official, US military planes can carry between 5,000 and 9,000 people every day.

“The entrances to Kabul airport are secure,” he said, stressing that the reinforcements of troops sent to ensure the safety of operations “will allow additional entrances to be opened”. The United States plans to evacuate a total of more than 30,000 Americans and Afghan civilians.



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