Taliban ’rounding up blacklist of Afghan government workers and threatening to punish them’

Published

4 years ago

August 19, 2021

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Taliban fighters killed nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of Afghanistan’s Ghazni province last month, Amnesty International has said.

The killings, which took place between 4 and 6 July in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district, saw six men shot and three others tortured to death.

One man was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles cut off, while another had his legs and arms broken and his hair pulled out, researchers from the human rights charity said.

The Hazaras are one of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic minorities and were persecuted under the Sunni Taliban’s earlier rule.

Amnesty International said the brutal killings are likely to represent a “tiny fraction of the total death toll inflicted by the Taliban to date”, as the military group has cut mobile phone service in many of the areas they have recently captured, controlling which photographs and videos are then shared from these regions.

Researchers interviewed eyewitnesses and reviewed photographic evidence in the aftermath of the killings.

Villagers said they fled into the mountains to traditional iloks, their summer grazing land, where they have basic shelters, but there was not enough food for the 30 families that had gathered there and so nine people returned to the village to gather supplies.

The five men and four women discovered their homes had been looted and Taliban fighters were waiting for them.

One man, 45-year-old Wahed Qaraman, was taken from his house and had his legs and arms broken, his hair pulled out, his face beaten with a blunt object, and was shot.

Another man, Jaffar Rahimi, was accused of working for the Afghan government after money was found in his pocket.

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He was strangled to death with his own scarf, and three people involved in his burial told Amnesty that his body was covered in bruises and his arm muscles had been carved off.

A 40-year-old man named Sayed Abdul Hakim was beaten with sticks and rifle butts, had his arms bound, and was shot four times by Taliban fighters, before his body was dumped in a nearby creek.

One eyewitness, who assisted with the burials, told Amnesty: “We asked the Taliban why they did this, and they told us, ‘When it is the time of conflict, everyone dies, it doesn’t matter if you have guns or not. It is the time of war’.”

The charity’s secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, has called for the UN Security Council to adopt an emergency resolution “demanding that the Taliban respect international human rights law and ensure the safety of all Afghans”.

“The cold-blooded brutality of these killings is a reminder of the Taliban’s past record, and a horrifying indicator of what Taliban rule may bring,” she added.

“These targeted killings are proof that ethnic and religious minorities remain at particular risk under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.”

During the killing spree, three other men, Ali Jan Tata, 65, Zia Faqeer Shah, 23, and Ghulam Rasool Reza, 53, were ambushed and executed as they attempted to reach their homes in the nearby hamlet of Wuli.

According to witnesses, Zia Faqeer Shah’s chest was so riddled with bullets that he was buried in pieces.

Three more men were killed in their home village, the charity said.

The Taliban have seized power in Afghanistan following the collapse of the government in recent days.

Chaotic scenes broke out at Kabul’s airport on Monday as hundreds of desperate Afghans, foreign diplomats, and officials attempted to flee the country to escape the Taliban rule.

World

Trump has ‘heated phone call’ with Netanyahu over strike targeting Hamas in Qatar

Published

2 hours ago

September 10, 2025

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Trump has 'heated phone call' with Netanyahu over strike targeting Hamas in Qatar

Donald Trump had a heated phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his military targeted Hamas inside Qatar, according to a report.

The American president told Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday that the decision to strike inside the US ally’s territory was not wise, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing senior administration officials.

The Israeli prime minister responded by saying he had a brief window to launch the airstrike and took the opportunity, according to the newspaper.

A second call between the two leaders later that day was cordial, with Mr Trump asking Mr Netanyahu if the attack had been successful, the publication added.

Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of the Islamist group Hamas with the attack in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday.

Hamas has said its top leaders survived the airstrike, but five members were killed, including the son of its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator Khalil al Hayya.

The Israeli military operation in Doha has been widely condemned internationally and was particularly sensitive as Qatar has been hosting and mediating in negotiations which are trying to bring about a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu warned Qatar to either expel Hamas officials or “bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will”.

Qatar has hit back at him, saying his comments about the Gulf nation hosting a Hamas office were “reckless”.

Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, has said that if Israel failed to kill Hamas leaders on Tuesday, it would succeed next time.

“We have put terrorists on notice, wherever they may be… we’re going to pursue them, and we’re going to destroy those who will destroy us,” he said.

The airstrike took place shortly after Hamas claimed responsibility for Monday’s shooting at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem that killed six people.

In another development, Sir Keir Starmer has had talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Downing Street, with Mr Herzog saying they argued during a “tough meeting”.

PM condemns Israeli action

The prime minister has condemned the Israeli attack in Qatar, and raised the matter with the president, saying it was “completely unacceptable”.

“He said the strikes were a flagrant violation of a key partner’s sovereignty and do nothing to secure the peace we all desperately want to see,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Israel has been angered by Britain’s plans to join several other Western countries, including France and Canada, in recognising a Palestinian state later this month – unless Israel meets conditions including a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Things were said that were tough and strong, and clearly we can argue, because when allies meet, they can argue. We are both democracies,” Mr Herzog said at an event at Chatham House.

He also proposed offering a “fact-finding mission” to Israel, “sitting with us and studying the situation in Gaza on the humanitarian level”.

“Because we have full answers, and we are fully transparent,” he said.

World

Drones and salami: How Putin is testing the West with Poland airspace violation

Published

10 hours ago

September 10, 2025

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Drones and salami: How Putin is testing the West with Poland airspace violation

The unprecedented Russian drone attacks on Poland are both a test and a warning. How Europe and NATO respond could be crucial to security on this continent.

The Russians are past masters at what’s called “salami slicing”. Tactics that use a series of smaller actions to produce a much bigger outcome that otherwise would have been far more provocative.

The Kremlin is probing the West with gradual but steady escalation. A British Council building and an EU installation are bombed in Kyiv; a senior EU official’s plane’s GPS is jammed.

On their own each provocation produces nothing more than rhetoric from the West – but new lines are crossed and Russia is emboldened.

Ukraine war latest: NATO chief sends message to Putin

Putin is good at this.

He used salami slicing tactics masterfully in 2014 with his “little green men” invasion of Crimea, a range of ambiguous military and diplomatic tactics to take control. The West’s confused delay in responding sealed Crimea’s fate.

He has just taken a larger slice of salami with his drone attacks on Poland.

They are of course a test of NATO’s readiness to deploy its Article 5 obligations. Russia has attacked a member state, allies believe deliberately.

Will NATO trigger the all for one, one for all mechanism in Poland’s defence and attack Russia? Not very likely.

But failing to respond projects weakness. Putin will see the results of his test and plot the next one.

Expect lots of talk of sanctions but remember they failed to avert this invasion and have failed to persuade Russia to reverse it. The only sanctions likely to bite are the ones the US president refuses to approve, on Russia’s oil trade.

So how are the drones also a warning? Well, they pose a question.

Vladimir Putin is asking the West if it really wants to become more involved in this conflict with its own forces. Europeans are considering putting boots on the ground inside Ukraine after any potential ceasefire.

If this latest attack is awkward and complicated and hard to respond to now, what happens if Russia uses hybrid tactics then?

Deniable, ambiguous methods that the Russians excel in could make life very difficult for the alliance if it is embroiled in Ukraine.

Think twice before committing your troops there, Russia is warning the West.

There is more Europe could do.

It could stop buying Russian energy, which it is still astonishingly importing – more than 20 billion euros a year at the last count.

It could use its massive economic advantage (20 times that of Russia’s, and that was before the war) to do more to fund Ukraine’s defence.

While it continues to do neither, expect more excruciating slices of the salami to come.

World

Riot police clash with ‘Block Everything’ protesters in Paris

Published

14 hours ago

September 10, 2025

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Riot police clash with 'Block Everything' protesters in Paris

Riot police have clashed with protesters in Paris after they took to the streets in response to calls to ‘Block Everything’ over discontent with the French government.

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of the French capital and other cities, including Marseille and Montpellier, in response to the online ‘Bloquons Tout’ campaign, which is urging people to strike, block roads, and other public services.

The government has deployed more than 80,000 officers to respond to the unrest, which has seen 200 arrested nationwide so far, according to police, and comes on the same day the new prime minister is being sworn in.

Demonstrators were seen rolling bins into the middle of roads to stop cars, while police rushed to remove the makeshift blockades as quickly as possible.

Tear gas was used by police outside Paris‘s Gare du Nord train station, where around 1,000 gathered, clutching signs declaring Wednesday a public holiday.

Others in the city blocked the entrance to a high school where firefighters were forced to remove burnt objects from a barricade.

Elsewhere in the country, traffic disruptions were reported on major roads in Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, and Lyon.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters a group of protesters had torched a bus in the Breton city of Rennes.

Fourth prime minister in a year

The ‘Block Everything’ rallies come amid spiralling national debt and are similar to the Yellow Vest movement that broke out over tax increases during President Emmanuel Macron’s first term.

‘Bloquons tout’ was first spearheaded online by right-wing groups in May but has since been embraced by the left and far left, experts say.

On Monday, former Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a vote of no confidence, and was replaced by Sebastien Lecornu at the Hotel Matignon on Wednesday afternoon, becoming the fourth person in the job in just 12 months.

A teacher, Christophe Lalande, taking part in the Paris protests, told reporters at the scene: “Bayrou was ousted, [now] his policies must be eliminated.”

Elsewhere, union member Amar Lagha said: “This day is a message to all the workers of this country: that there is no resignation, the fight continues, and a message to this government that we won’t back down, and if we have to die, we’ll die standing.”