Jalalabad: Three killed by Taliban shooting during protests defying Afghan flag

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At least three people are believed to have been killed after Taliban militants opened fire to break up a protest in Jalalabad on Wednesday, with dozens taking to the streets in a rare display of dissent against the militant group’s takeover of Afghanistan, waving Afghan national flags. .

Dozens of demonstrators in the eastern city took to the streets to protest the way the Taliban took control of the country by force and to defend the national flag that the group’s fighters removed from the presidential palace after it was vacated by President Ashraf Ghani.

Salim Ahmed, a local resident, told the Associated Press that Taliban members fired in the air to disperse the crowd, but a witness told Reuters that at least three people died in the shooting and the ensuing chaos. Al Jazeera reported that about 12 others were injured.

Since they began making sweeping territorial gains across the country last month, the Taliban have replaced the Afghan national flag with their own flag, a white background with a black Islamic inscription.

The Taliban leadership has promised a general “amnesty” to those in the government who have opposed it for the past 20 years and says it will not carry out revenge attacks.

But in another incident of street violence on Wednesday, Taliban forces blew up the statue of a Shiite military leader who fought the armed group in Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, according to local reports.

Continuing to consolidate its grip on the country three days after overrunning Kabul, Taliban fighters armed with long rifles were seen patrolling neighborhoods of the capital, including areas in the so-called Green Zone that housed many embassies as well as Afghan palaces. elite.

The group’s successful military campaign to seize control of the country sparked panic and chaos as many rushed to flee, fearing a humanitarian crisis and the return of brutal Taliban rule. There are widespread concerns about the rights of women, children, and minorities under the conservative Islamist group, although it has given some limited assurances on this front.

While seeking to avoid turning Afghanistan into a pariah state, the Taliban claimed that it would form an “inclusive government, allow women to work and preserve their rights.” In its rule before the US-led invasion in 2001, the Taliban abolished women’s rights, banned television and music and carried out public executions by stoning.

The chaotic withdrawal of Western forces and the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul has prompted countries around the world to withdraw their diplomatic staff and other citizens as quickly as possible, especially through the Kabul airport – which remains under US control.

There is likely to be a large exodus of refugees from the country, with many Afghans also trying to flee. The British government on Wednesday pledged to take in 5,000 Afghan refugees this year, most of them women and children.

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