Live: Taliban conducting ‘targeted door-to-door visits’, warns UN report

Issued on: 20/08/2021 – 07:34

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8:33am Paris time

• Taliban fighters harass Afghans displaying national tricolour

A day after Afghan Independence Day, several videos posted on social media showed Taliban fighters harassing and beating people defiantly displaying the red, black and green Afghan national flag. 

In the Asadabad, the capital of the eastern province of Kunar, “hundreds of people came out on the streets” for an Independence Day rally, according to witness Mohammed Salim.

“At first I was scared and didn’t want to go but when I saw one of my neighbours joined in, I took out the flag I have at home.”

Salim also told Reuters that “several people were killed and injured” during the rally in Asadabad, but it was not clear if the casualties resulted from Taliban firing or from a stampede that it triggered, he said.

August 19 is Afghan Independence Day, commemorating the 1919 treaty that ended British rule in the central Asian nation. The Afghan tricolour has been replaced in most public spaces by the Taliban’s black-on-white flag. 

7:09am Paris time

• Taliban kill relative of Afghan journalist working for German media

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have shot and killed a relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist while hunting for him, the German public broadcaster said.

The militants were conducting a house-to-house search for the journalist, who now works in Germany, DW said Thursday.

A second relative was seriously wounded but others were able to escape, it said, without giving details of the incident.

DW director general Peter Limbourg condemned the killing, which he said showed the danger to media workers and their families in Afghanistan.

“The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves,” he said.

“It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organised searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!”

The Taliban had raided the homes of at least three other DW journalists, the broadcaster said.

6:37am Paris time

• US evacuates about 3,000 from Kabul airport Thursday

The US on Friday said it had evacuated about 3,000 people from the Kabul airport on Thursday.

“The United States evacuated approximately 3,000 people from Hamid Karzai International Airport on 16 C-17 flights,” said a White House official in a media pool report, adding that nearly 350 were US citizens.

“Additional evacuees include family members of US citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and their families, and vulnerable Afghans,” the official said, for a tally of about 9,000 evacuated by the military since August 14.

6:01am Paris time

• Taliban are targeting Afghans who worked with US and NATO forces, UN report says

The Taliban have been conducting “targeted door-to-door visits” of people who worked with US and NATO forces, according to a confidential document by the UN’s threat assessment consultants seen by several media organisations. 

The report, written by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, said militants were also screening people on the way to Kabul airport. 

“They are targeting the families of those who refuse to give themselves up, and prosecuting and punishing their families ‘according to Sharia law’,” Christian Nellemann, the group’s executive director, told AFP.

“We expect both individuals previously working with NATO/US forces and their allies, alongside with their family members to be exposed to torture and executions.”

The Taliban have repeatedly denied accusations that their fighters are targeting Afghan civilians and say they have issued orders barring their fighters from entering private homes.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and REUTERS)