Federico Giuliani:

Taliban has stepped up its offensive, attacking Afghan cities and killing people in the backdrop of the US forces leaving the country after two decades of prolonged war. Now, the government in Kabul is trying its best to defend the country from Taliban and allied radical Islamist forces. However, Taliban continues to capture new areas and subsequently impose regime thatintends to take Afghanistan to old days under Taliban’s rule. It which means the non-existence of human values and even death punishment for petty crimes or violations of rules.The territories that have fallen to the Taliban in the past few days have witnessed horrors from the past. There have been reports of Talibani forces killing civilians and off-duty security personnel as well as bombing homes and assaulting women.Many such videos of atrocities by Talibani militants are going viral, which also show distressed Afghani people asking for global help.

As the Talibani militants are capturing cities, many people are migrating to other parts of the country, which are under the Kabul government, in order to escape brutal treatment. “We know that the Taliban have warned residents and have given some neighbourhoods time to leave their homes in a matter of hours,”reported TRT World’s correspondent Bilal Sarwary. “People continue to abandon their homes and livelihoods and move from one part of the city to another,”Sarwaryhas been covering the fighting between Taliban and Afghan forces. The assault on civilians by the Taliban has caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people including children. Over 900,000 people are reported to have been displaced after the Taliban launched attacks on civilian areas in the past three months.

The Taliban forces are setting homes of average, unarmed Afghan families on fire and even using civilians as a human shield during the gun-battles with armed forces. Mohammad Nazar, a resident of Tazarigh village in Kaldar district of Balkh in northern Afghanistansaid the Taliban was assisted by foreign militants from Pakistan when homes in his village were destroyed. “Here it was our home. The Taliban, who are the slaves of Pakistan, came here and destroyed our homes, they planted mines here,” he told media.

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has reported that as many as 2,957 civilians casualties were reported in the first six months of 2021, of which 1,213 deaths were deaths. Taliban was responsible for 48.5 percent of these civilian casualties. Now, the UK and the US have accused the Taliban of ‘massacring civilians’ in possible ‘war crimes’ in Spin Boldak, south Afghanistan. Taliban took 900 people out of their homes and shot them to death.“The Taliban’s leadership must be held responsible for the crimes of their fighters The Taliban massacred dozens of civilians in revenge killings. These murders could constitute war crimes,” the US and the UK embassies said.

And women are worse affected by the Taliban brutalities. They are being beaten in public and even killed. Innocent Afghani women are being forced into “jihad al-nikah”, in which daughters and wives are forcefully sent to terrorists to serve them sexually.Former US president George W. Bush has feared that Afghan women and girls are going to “suffer unspeakable harm.” It led him to question the decision to pull out troops, which led to the war-torn country being swallowed by Talibani militants. “I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad,” he said.

Now, Taliban militants are trying to impose rigid and suppressive rules based on Sharia laws in the area they have captured recently.New fatwas (decrees) issued by them forbid women from going out of their homes without male companions while forces men to grow a beard. They also have come up with dowry regulations for girls, said Merajuddin Sharifi, a social activist. They urged women in a statement to not leave home without a male relative. Taliban insist on trials without evidence,” he said. There are a few more sanctions on women. Now they should not ride a taxi and be always covered ina burqa.Revoking old memories, the Taliban has banned the production and distribution of music or any audio-visual entertainment.

Source: Insideover.com