According to a UN report, The Taliban are targeting their opponents and their families, including those who worked with the US and NATO, says an AFP report citing a confidential document by the UN’s threat assessment consultants.
US President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak on Afghanistan evacuation efforts on Friday. However, he said that the withdrawal deadline of American troops may be extended from August 31st.
Since the Taliban took over Kabul on Sunday and the President left the country during the devastating crisis which further triggered a rush of fearful people trying to leave the country at any cost.
However, a total of 12 people have been killed in and around the airport in the Afghan capital, Reuters quoted Taliban and NATO officials as saying. Also, a NATO official said that more than 18,000 people have been evacuated from Kabul airport since Sunday.
On Thursday, the Taliban celebrated Afghanistan’s Independence Day, declaring it had beaten “the arrogant of power of the world” in the United States. Afghanistan’s Independence Day commemorates the 1919 treaty which ended British rule in the central Asian nation, the Associated Press reported.
However, the people of Afghanistan came out on the streets to mark the country’s Independence Day. People came out courageously without thinking about their lives which any time can be taken away by the Taliban militants.
In the Afghan capital Kabul, hundreds of people including women walked on the streets holding the flag of Afghanistan.
They also went to the well-known hill-Wazir Akbar Khan- where the Taliban brought down the city’s iconic and biggest flag of Afghanistan.
It was also reported that at least two people were killed after the Taliban opened fire at a crowd celebrating independence day in Asadabad city in Kunar province, witnesses told Al Jazeera. The incident occurred after a member of the crowd celebrating the day stabbed a Taliban fighter with a knife, prompting the Taliban to open fire.
In Jalalabad, Taliban fighters fired at people waving the Afghan flag during independence day celebrations, injuring a man and a teenage boy.
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has told Chinese state media that China has played a constructive role in promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and is welcome to contribute to the rebuilding of the country. In dealing with the Taliban, an increasingly powerful China may be able to leverage the fact that unlike Russia and the United States, it has not fought in Afghanistan.
