Afghanistan: Taliban shoot opponents during protest – HuffPost

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

AFGHANISTAN – “All those on the opposite side are forgiven from A to Z”, Assured the Taliban Tuesday August 17th. A statement that rings very hollow this August 18 while the fighters opened fire on the participants of a demonstration in the east of the country, in Jalalabad.

They violently dispersed a public demonstration against the Taliban regime. According to Reuters and the chain Al-Jazeera, three deaths would be deplored and a dozen people injured. Around 1 p.m., the press agency AP evoked for its part a death and six injured.

Dozens of people gathered in the city of Jalalabad to hoist the national flag a day before Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the end of British rule in 1919. They lowered the flag of the Taliban -a white banner with an Islamic inscription-, placed by the insurgents when taking the city Few days ago.

Breaking:

Protestors in Jalalabad city want the national flag back on offices & rejects Taliban terrorists’ flag. Taliban openly fires at protestors. Reports of casualties. pic.twitter.com/EFoy4oh3uT

– Najeeb Nangyal (@NajeebNangyal) August 18, 2021

“Protesters in the city of Jalalabad want the national flag to return to public buildings and reject the flag of the Taliban terrorists. The Taliban openly shoot at the demonstrators ”.

The Taliban would then have fired in the air to disperse the crowd, then on the demonstrators. According to AP, Babrak Amirzada, a reporter for a local news agency, said he and a television cameraman from another agency were beaten by the Taliban as they tried to cover the event.

The Afghan news agency Pajhwok broadcast images of the crackdown.

Reassure terrorized Afghans

The Taliban have promised to work for reconciliation in Afghanistan, saying they have forgiven their opponents and want protect women’s rights in accordance with Islamic law, but several Western countries are waiting to see “the acts”, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pointed out this Wednesday.

Two days after taking power, the new masters of Afghanistan held their first press conference in Kabul on Tuesday. Their co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, called to high office, returned to the country.

They strove to reassure the world, alarmed by their human rights record when they were in power (1996-2001) and by the heartbreaking images of thousands of Afghans trying to flee through Kabul airport.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid asserted that the Islamists learned from their first exercise of power and that there would be “many differences” in their way of governing, even if ideologically “there is no difference”.

See also on The HuffPost: The emotion of families who fled Afghanistan upon their arrival in Frankfort