How Afghanistan is sliding back to dark days: Taliban atrocities a grim warning

Three blood-curdling incidents over a month and a half have yet again brought out the monster of Taliban which is challenging the Afghan government and has claimed to have taken control of most of the war-ravaged country.

The first was the coldblooded slaughter of at least 22 Afghan soldiers in the town of Dawlat Abad in Faryab province, close to Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan on June 16.

Videos show the commandos’ bodies strewn across an outdoor market. After a fierce battle to hold the town, the commandos had run out of ammunition and were surrounded by the Taliban fighters, witnesses said.

In one video, about 45 seconds long, a bystander can be heard saying in Pashto, the local language: “Don’t shoot them, don’t shoot them, I beg you don’t shoot them.” The bystander then asks: “How are you Pashtun killing Afghans?” The Pashtuns are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan. In the video, another voice off-camera says: “Take everything off them.”

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Then came the killing of the Indian photojournalist, a Pultizer prize winner, Danish Siddiqui. He was embedded with the Afghan special forces who were nearing Spin Boldak, the lucrative outpost near the Pakistan border. A gut-wrenching account of his murder has come out in Washington Examiner.

The report said Siddiqui was “brutally murdered” by the Taliban after verifying his identity. In a well-planned attack, the Taliban were able to split the Afghan forces reconnoitering the Spin Boldak area. Siddiqui was injured in the attack and was taken to a local mosque where he was given medical treatment. The report said when the Taliban got to know of the presence of an Indian in a mosque, they attacked it. After verifying his identity, the Taliban fighters executed him as well as those with him, the report said.

The third report of Taliban brutality came earlier this week when an Afghan comedian, Nazar Mohammad, better known as Khasha Zwan, was captured and shot multiple times. Khasha told jokes in a country where people’s lives hang by a thread — each day. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for his killing.

Afghanistan has a total of 407 districts. The Taliban claims to have captured 212 of these districts. There is a struggle for possession between the Taliban and Afghanistan government forces in 119 districts. And only 76 districts are controlled by the government of Afghanistan.

Also read: Pakistani fighters, Taliban told to first target Indian assets in Afghanistan

There have been allegations by Afghan women in areas forcibly taken by the Taliban that the male members have been forced to work for the rebels and that the women have been completely confined to their homes.

May 2021 was a bloody month in Afghanistan with the strife-torn country getting more volatile and politically unstable. Taking advantage of the commencement of the final drawdown of the US-led international forces, the ultra-conservative Sunni Taliban has intensified its efforts to capture more areas with its ties with Al-Qaeda intact and the so-called Islamic State Khorasan Province acting in harmony with the Islamist forces.

The disruptive role of Pakistani deep state is adding fuel to the fire with Islamabad continuing its support to Taliban’s terror tactics. The peace process has failed to deliver any positive outcomes and has little or no hope of doing so in future.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his Delhi visit (July 29) warned that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will make it a “pariah state.” “An Afghanistan that does not respect the rights of its people…commits atrocities against its own people would become a pariah state,” he said.