UN report: Taliban ‘intensifying’ search for Afghans who worked for US
The Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with US and NATO forces, a confidential United Nations document says, despite the militants vowing no revenge against opponents.
The report by the UN’s threat-assessment consultants says the group has “priority lists” of individuals it wants to arrest.
It corroborates testimonies from dozens of Afghans inside the country, including a former employee of EUPOL, a European Union agency training Afghan police, and a former staffer at the Dutch embassy, both of whom told our reporters that Taliban fighters were going door to door in Kabul to identify people who had worked for the international community.
The militant group has promised safe passage to Kabul Airport to foreigners. But Afghan nationals eligible for evacuation have reported difficulties and violence.
Taliban fighters and checkpoints ringed Kabul airport on Thursday, adding to fears for Afghan nationals who previously worked for the West. This evening German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said the Taliban had shot and killed one of its reporters’ family members.
Planeloads of EU citizens and Afghan refugees have been landing in Europe throughout Thursday. But chaos at the airport continues, while the Taliban opened fire on an Independence Day protest in Kabul and a fledgling resistance movement continues to assert its presence in the northeast.
