The Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
are conducting a massive security sweep of Kabul and other Afghan cities, their front man said Sunday, going house-to-house in search of weapons and criminals blamed for a recent spate of robberies and kidnappings.
The operation, which started Friday, has alarmed many who fear being targeted because of their association with the previous Western-backed regime or the US-led foreign forces who finally withdrew on August 31.
Some irate residents posted videos on social media showing homes they said had been trashed during Taliban searches, but several people told AFP their encounters had been polite and cursory.
"It was just my nephew at home when they came and they made a big mess," said one resident, who asked not to be named, showing AFP a series of pictures that revealed considerable disruption.
The Taliban called the sweep a "clearing operation."
"We are trying to take steps against those kidnappers, thieves and looters who have weapons in their hands and threaten the lives of the people," front man Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference.
He said authorities had discovered two kidnap victims during the operation, and also freed two teenage girls who they found chained in a basement.
Mujahid said light and heavy weapons, explosives, radio equipment and drones had been seized, as well as vehicles belonging to the military or government.
PATROLS STEPPED UP
Six people suspected of being members of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group were tossed into the calaboose, he said, along with nine kidnappers and 53 "professional thieves."
"We want to assure the residents of Kabul that these operations are not against the common people," Mujahid said.
"The residents of the city should be confident the search is going on carefully."
The Taliban have also stepped up street patrols in the capital and established temporary roadblocks at key intersections, where they search vehicles at random or check the identities of those inside.
Dozens of newly trained policewomen were involved in the sweep in case there were no men at houses being searched, Mujahid said.
Social media showed images and video clips of doors and wardrobes that had been bashed in, cushions and mattresses slashed open, and belongings strewn across floors.
"The intimidations, house searches, arrests and violence against members of different ethnic groups and women are crimes and must stop immediately," tweeted Andreas von Brandt, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
’s ambassador to Afghanistan.
"Despite Putin’s war we are watching you," he added, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has dominated news cycles for the past few days.
"Focus on securing Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...from Putin," replied Muhammad Jalal, a Taliban official with a prolific social media presence.
"Afghans know what they are doing."
Taliban ban Afghans from evacuating amid massive security sweep
Afghanistan
[AlAhram] The Taliban
...Arabic for
students...
have clamped down on Afghans leaving the country as, separately, their forces continue a massive security sweep, going house-to-house across the capital Monday in a "clearing operation".
The new travel ban was announced late Sunday by Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid, who packaged the restrictions as being aimed at preventing hardship for Afghans abroad.
Evacuations organised by nations or non-governmental organizations have been banned, while even families attempting to leave the country by their own means now need "an excuse", or they will be stopped by immigration.
"I have to say clearly that persons who leave the country along with their families and have no excuse... we are preventing them," Mujahid told a presser late Sunday.
Women will also not be able to fly abroad unless accompanied by a male relative mirroring similar domestic restrictions introduced last year which bar solo travel between cities and towns.
"If they (women) want to travel abroad, they should have a chaperone," Mujahid said.
"This is the order of Islamic sharia law."
The announcement came the same weekend a search for "kidnappers, thieves and looters" kicked off in Kabul and other Afghan cities -- a so-called "clearing operation" separate from the travel measures.
The new travel restrictions will alarm tens of thousands of Afghans who have been promised asylum abroad after working with US-led foreign forces or other Western organizations during the Taliban's 20-year insurgency.
More than 120,000 Afghans and dual nationals were evacuated up to August 31 when the last US-led troops withdrew, two weeks after the hardline Islamists seized Kabul.
Thousands with similar links are still in Afghanistan, however, desperate to leave and fearful they may be targeted by the Taliban as "collaborators".
The last official evacuation by air was on December 1, although organised road convoys to Pakistain have taken place as recently as last week.
BAD CONDITIONS
Mujahid said the decision to ban departures came because the Taliban had received reports of thousands of Afghans "living in very bad conditions" abroad.
"The government has the responsibility to protect the people so this will be stopped until we get the assurance that their lives will not be endangered," he said, adding that they had never promised for evacuations to continue indefinitely.
"Initially we had said that the Americans... could take people whom they had any concerns about... But this is not a continuous promise."
Since the Taliban took over Kabul in August, Afghanistan has plunged into economic crisis, pushing even those without links to the former regime to scramble for an exit.
Thousands of people daily try to cross into neighbouring Iran
...The word Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both...
in search of work, or in a bid to reach Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
in the hope of asylum.