Taliban killings fuel fear, drive more chaos outside airport

By AHMAD SEIR, TAMEEM AKHGAR and REBECCA SANTANA

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Reports of targeted killings successful areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fueling fears that they volition instrumentality Afghanistan to the repressive regularisation they imposed erstwhile they were past successful power, adjacent arsenic they urged imams to propulsion a connection of unity astatine play prayers.

Terrified that the caller rulers would perpetrate specified abuses and despairing for their country’s future, thousands person raced to Kabul’s airport, wherever chaotic scenes continued unabated. People seeking to flight struggled to get past crushing crowds, Taliban airdrome checkpoints and U.S. bureaucracy. Video images showed crowds gathered successful the acheronian extracurricular the barbed-wire topped walls. Occasionally idiosyncratic changeable a watercourse of gunfire into the air.

What appeared to beryllium American troops stood successful the distance. In 1 melodramatic image, a U.S. Marine reached implicit the razor ligament atop a obstruction and plucked a babe by the limb from the assemblage and pulled it up implicit the wall.

Reports of planes leaving astatine slightest partially bare underscored however hard it inactive is for radical to get into the airport. In an denotation of the grade of the chaos, the Belgian overseas affairs ministry confirmed that 1 of its craft took disconnected from Kabul without a azygous rider due to the fact that the radical who were expected to beryllium connected committee got stuck extracurricular the airport.

Also Friday, American officials confirmed to The Associated Press that U.S. subject helicopters flew into Taliban-held Kabul to scoop up would-be evacuees, and President Joe Biden pledged to bring each Americans backmost from Afghanistan — and Afghans who aided the warfare effort, too.

“We volition get you home,” Biden said from the White House.

The Taliban accidental they person go much mean since they past ruled Afghanistan successful the precocious 1990s and person pledged to reconstruct information and forgive those who fought them successful the 20 years since a U.S.-led penetration toppled them from power.

But galore Afghans are skeptical, fearing that the Taliban volition erase the gains, particularly for women, achieved successful the past 2 decades. Opposition to the takeover has included thoroughfare protests — acts of defiance that Taliban fighters person violently suppressed.

An Amnesty International study provided much grounds Friday that undercut the Taliban’s claims they person changed.

The rights radical said that its researchers spoke to eyewitnesses successful Ghazni state who recounted however the Taliban killed 9 taste Hazara men successful the colony of Mundarakht from July 4 to July 6. It said six of the men were shot, and 3 were tortured to death. Hazaras are Shiite Muslims who were antecedently persecuted by the Taliban and who made large gains successful acquisition and societal presumption successful caller years.

Amnesty International warned that much killings whitethorn person gone unreported due to the fact that the Taliban chopped cellphone services successful galore areas they captured.

Separately, Reporters without Borders expressed alarm astatine the quality that Taliban fighters killed a household subordinate of an Afghan writer moving for Germany’s Deutsche Welle connected Wednesday. The broadcaster said fighters conducted house-to-house searches for their reporter, who had already relocated to Germany.

Meanwhile, a Norway-based backstage quality radical that provides accusation to the United Nations said it obtained grounds that the Taliban person rounded up Afghans connected a blacklist of radical they judge worked successful cardinal roles with the erstwhile Afghan medication oregon with U.S.-led forces.

In an email, the enforcement manager of the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses said the enactment knew astir respective menace letters sent to Afghans.

A study from the radical that was obtained by the AP included 1 of the letters, but the AP could not independently verify the group’s claims.

It’s not wide whether the reports of abuses bespeak that Taliban leaders are saying 1 happening but doing different oregon whether they simply bash not person afloat power implicit their forces. The standard and velocity of their takeover seems to person challenged the leadership’s quality to power their fighters.

Under the Taliban’s erstwhile rule, women were mostly confined to their homes, tv and euphony were banned, and nationalist executions were held regularly.

Amid the uncertainty, thousands person tried to fly the country.

Mohammad Naim, who said helium utilized to beryllium an interpreter for U.S. forces, has been successful the airdrome assemblage for 4 days trying to escape. He said helium enactment his children connected the extortion of a car connected the archetypal time to prevention them from being crushed by the wide of people. He saw different children killed who were incapable to get retired of the way.

He urged others not to travel to the airport.

“It is simply a very, precise brainsick concern close now,” helium said.

A wide seen video shared connected societal media showed immoderate of the chaos erstwhile a U.S. Marine astatine the airdrome pulled a babe retired of the crowd. A spokesperson from the Marine Corps, Maj. Jim Stenger, confirmed that the Marine was a subordinate of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and said the babe was “cared for by aesculapian professionals.” The kid was aboriginal reunited with its father, and they are harmless astatine the airport, Stenger said.

It was not wide erstwhile the incidental happened.

The United States is struggling to prime up the gait of evacuations. American subject planes paused flights from the airdrome for six to 7 hours Friday owed to a deficiency of places disposable to instrumentality evacuees, but they aboriginal resumed.

So far, 13 countries person agreed to big at-risk Afghans astatine slightest temporarily, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Another 12 person agreed to service arsenic transit points for evacuees, including Americans and others.

Biden’s pledge to bring location each Americans and to evacuate each Afghans who assisted the warfare effort represented a perchance immense enlargement of the administration’s commitments connected the airlift truthful far. Tens of thousands of Afghan translators and others, and their adjacent household members, are seeking evacuation.

European countries are besides moving to bring retired their citizens and those who person worked with them. But Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said Friday that the country’s subject transport planes are leaving Kabul partially bare successful the tumult.

“Nobody’s successful power of the situation,” Robles told Spanish nationalist vigor RNE.

Germany was sending 2 helicopters to Kabul to assistance bring tiny numbers of radical from elsewhere successful the metropolis to the airport, officials said.

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Akhgar reported from Istanbul, Santana from New Orleans. Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen successful Copenhagen, Denmark, Frank Jordans successful Berlin, Barry Hatton successful Lisbon, Kathy Gannon successful Islamabad, David Rising successful Bangkok and Rod McGurk successful Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.