Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has edged out the devastation in Afghanistan when it comes to media headlines. Taliban leaders appear poised to take full advantage of the international community’s averted gaze to continue hunting down and killing their former enemies.
On taking power in Afghanistan, the Taliban promised amnesty for Afghans who worked in the former government or with foreign forces. The promise was quickly broken, with both the United Nations and Human Rights Watch saying they possessed credible evidence of Taliban killings. While the Taliban continued denying these activities publicly, they released private guidance in October 2021, ordering their fighters to conduct further reprisal attacks in secret.
Notable exceptions have occurred, the latest on Monday, Feb. 21, when the Taliban killed three in Herat province, including former government policeman Mahboob Shah. The Taliban were seen removing one victim’s brain from his head before placing his body on a crane. It is unclear whether the victim was Shah, whose body was hung from a crane on a truck and gruesomely paraded through the streets. To justify the murders, the Taliban flimsily alleged the three men planned to kidnap a gold trader.
The Taliban have tried this tactic previously. In early January, when they killed a former National Directorate of Security officer, the Taliban first claimed the man was a kidnapper and subsequently stated he was a member of ISIS-K.
On or around Feb. 22, the Taliban quietly issued new guidance to its personnel banning all NATO and U.S. allies from leaving Afghanistan. The Taliban have not spoken of their latest order on official media or government channels, but when the guidance is weighed against their arrest of Afghans attempting to fly out of Mazar-e Sharif around January 26, it seems highly plausible. Doug Ramsdell, the Executive Director of evacuation group Operation 620, told the Washington Examiner the order “has sealed the fate of any Afghans who worked with NATO or the U.S. government.”
A representative from evacuation group Operation Recovery believes that approximately 130,000 Afghan allies remain in Afghanistan, hopeful for evacuation. The Moral Compass Federation’s coalition of 16 evacuation organizations have a combined 120 stranded American citizens and lawful permanent residents on their rosters.
The majority of these individuals are living in either Kabul, a city of more than 4,000,000, or Mazar-e-Sharif, a city of around 500,000, where they fled in hopes of evacuation in August 2021. Especially in Kabul, evacuation groups tell me that the Taliban are methodically conducting house-to-house searches each night to seek these individuals out.
I asked the State Department whether they could confirm the Taliban’s latest order and comment on how it affects plans for alleged future evacuation operations. A State Department spokesman said they could not “immediately confirm the veracity of the information presented.” For an answer, they “refer[red me] to the Taliban.”
In recognition of the terror they inflict on Afghans who send me daily, desperate pleas for updates about evacuation, I chose not to lend legitimacy to the Taliban by asking for their confirmation. Besides, the “Contact Us” link on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website was dead. But it is pathetic that the U.S. government is so subservient to this evil regime.
Those who consider the Taliban unsophisticated and backward fail to understand that the group has largely honed skills it found useful while operating as a terrorist organization. Chief among those are violence and deception. If U.S. leaders divert attention from Afghanistan on account of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, the Taliban will continue practicing the tools of their trade on the allies we promised to assist.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
