KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Reports of killings targeting Taliban-invaded areas mounted on Friday fuel fears of Afghanistan returning to the repressive rule they imposed when they last came to power, although they urged imams to send a message of unity in weekly prayers.
Terrified by the new rulers committing these abuses and desperate for the future of their country, thousands have rushed to Kabul airport, where the chaotic scenes continued unabated. People who wanted to escape struggled to overcome the crushing crowds, Taliban airport checkpoints and the American bureaucracy. The video footage showed crowds gathered in the dark outside the barbed wire-topped walls. From time to time someone fired a shot from the air.
What looked like they were American troops stayed in the distance. In a dramatic image, an American sailor came over the razor over a barrier and ripped a baby by the arm of the crowd and pulled him over the wall.
Reports of planes leaving at least partially empty highlighted how difficult it is for people to access the airport. In an indication of the extent of the chaos, the Belgian Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of its planes took off from Kabul without a single passenger because the people who were supposed to be on board were trapped outside. from the airport.
Also on Friday, U.S. officials confirmed to The Associated Press that U.S. military helicopters flew to Kabul, at the hands of the Taliban, to pick up the possible evacuees, and President Joe Biden pledged to return all northerners. -Americans from Afghanistan and Afghans who also helped the war effort. .
“We’ll take you home,” Biden said from the White House.
The Taliban say they have become more moderate since they last ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s and pledged to restore security and forgive those who fought them for 20 years since a U.S.-led invasion. The United States overthrew them from power.
But many Afghans are skeptical, fearing the Taliban will erase profits, especially for women., achieved in the last two decades. Opposition to the takeover has included street protests, acts of defiance that Taliban fighters have violently suppressed.
On Friday, an Amnesty International report provided further evidence that undermined the claims of the Taliban that they have changed.
The human rights group said its investigators spoke to eyewitnesses from Ghazni province who explained how the Taliban killed nine Hazara men in the town of Mundarakht from July 4-6. He said six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death. . The Hazares are Shiite Muslims who were previously persecuted by the Taliban and who have made significant gains in education and social status in recent years.
Amnesty International warned that more killings may not have been reported because the Taliban cut off mobile phone services in many areas they captured.
Separately, Reporters Without Borders expressed alarm at the news that Taliban fighters on Wednesday killed a relative of an Afghan journalist who worked for the German Deutsche Welle. The station said the fighters did house-to-house searches on their reporter, who had already moved to Germany.
Meanwhile, a Norwegian-based private intelligence group providing information to the United Nations said it had obtained evidence that the Taliban had gathered Afghans on a blacklist of people believed to have worked in key roles with the United Nations. previous Afghan administration or with forces led by the United States.
In an email, the executive director of the Norwegian Center for Global Analysis at RHIPTO said the organization was aware of several letters of threats sent to Afghans.
A group report obtained by the PA included one of the letters, but the PA was unable to independently verify the group’s claims.
It is unclear whether reports of abuse indicate that Taliban leaders are saying one thing but doing another or whether they simply do not have full control of their forces. The scale and speed of his takeover seems to have challenged the leadership’s ability to control its fighters.
According to the previous Taliban rule, women were largely confined to their homes, television and music were banned, and public executions were held regularly.
Amid the uncertainty, thousands have tried to flee the country.
Mohammad Naim, who said he used to be an interpreter for U.S. forces, has been in the airport crowd for four days trying to escape. He said he put his children on the roof of a car on the first day to save them from being crushed by the mass of people. He saw other children killed who could not get out of the way.
He urged others not to come to the airport.
“Right now it’s a very, very crazy situation,” he said.
A widely viewed video shared on social media showed some of the chaos when a U.S. Navy at the airport pulled a baby out of the crowd. A Marine Corps spokesman, Major Jim Stenger, confirmed that the Navy was a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and said the baby was “cared for by medical professionals.” The boy later met with his father, and they are safe at the airport, Stenger said.
It was unclear when the incident happened.
The United States is struggling to catch up of evacuations. U.S. military planes halted flights from the airport six to seven hours on Friday due to a lack of available seats to accommodate evacuees, but they were later resumed.
So far, 13 countries have agreed to host at-risk Afghans at least temporarily, said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Twelve others have agreed to serve as transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others.
Biden’s commitment to bring home all Americans and to evacuate all Afghans who helped the war effort represented a potential expansion of the administration’s commitments on the airlift so far. Tens of thousands of Afghan and other translators, and their close relatives, are seeking evacuation.
European countries are also working to bring to light their citizens and those who have worked with them. But Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said on Friday that the country’s military transport planes leave Kabul partially empty in the riot.
“No one is in control of the situation,” Robles told Spanish public radio RNE.
Germany was sending two helicopters to Kabul to help bring a small number of people from other parts of the city to the airport, officials said.
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Akhgar reported from Istanbul, Santana of New Orleans. Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, David Rising in Bangkok, and Rod McGurk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.