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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The Taliban violently dispersed a protest in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least one as they quelled a rare public demonstration of dissent. The militant group has meanwhile met with former officials of the overthrown government backed by the West.
As officials work to form a future government, the UAE has acknowledged that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the advancing Taliban, and his family were in the country.
Every action of the Taliban in their sudden rise to power is closely watched. They insist they have changed and will not impose the same drastic restrictions as when they last ruled Afghanistan, virtually eliminating women’s rights, carrying out public executions and harboring al-Qaida. in the years preceding the September 11 attacks.
But many Afghans remain deeply skeptical, and the violent reaction to Wednesday’s demonstration could only fuel their fears. Thousands of people are rushing to the airport and the borders to flee the country. Many more are hiding inside their homes, fearing after prisons and armories were emptied during the insurgent blitz across the country.
Dozens of people gathered in the eastern 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 – which the militants erected in the areas they captured.
Video footage then showed the Taliban shooting in the air and attacking people with batons to disperse the crowd. 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 up the unrest.
A local health official said at least one person was killed and six others injured. The official was not authorized to speak to the media and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, videos from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a stronghold of Northern Alliance militias who allied with the United States against the Taliban in 2001, appear to show potential opposition figures. who gather there. It is in the only province that has not yet fallen to the hands of the Taliban.
These figures include members of the ousted government – Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who claimed on Twitter that he was the country’s legitimate President and Minister of Defense, General Bismillah Mohammadi – as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of the assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. . It is not known whether they intend to challenge the Taliban, who took over most of the country in days last week.
The Taliban, meanwhile, continued their efforts to form an “inclusive Islamic government”. They held talks with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government. Mohammad Yusof Saha, spokesman for Karzai, said preliminary meetings with Taliban officials would facilitate possible negotiations with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s top political leader, who returned to the country this week.
Karzai and Abdullah met with Anas Haqqani, a senior official of a powerful Taliban faction, on Wednesday. The United States labeled the Haqqani network a terrorist group in 2012, and its involvement in a future government could trigger international sanctions.
Meanwhile, the UAE’s foreign ministry admitted in a one-sentence statement that Ghani and his family were in the country on “humanitarian grounds”. The president fled the advance of the Taliban on Sunday and disappeared amid widespread anger among Afghans over the collapse of the country’s security forces.
The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not clear if he had received any other help. The United Arab Emirates is a close ally of the United States.
Amid the uncertainty, thousands of Afghans have tried to flee the country in recent days, and the United States and its allies have struggled to cope with a chaotic withdrawal from the country.
Hundreds of people were outside the airport early Wednesday. The Taliban demanded to see documents before allowing the rare passenger to enter. Many people outside did not appear to have passports, and every time the door opened an inch, dozens tried to pass. The Taliban fired occasional warning shots to disperse them.
In Kabul, groups of Taliban fighters armed with long guns patrolled an affluent neighborhood that is home to many embassies as well as homes of the Afghan elite.
The Taliban have vowed to maintain security, but residents say groups of gunmen have been going door to door to find out about Afghans who worked with the Americans or the ousted government. It is not known whether the gunmen are Taliban or criminals posing as militants.
Another closely watched Taliban promise is their vow to prevent Afghanistan from being used again as a base for planning terrorist attacks. This was enshrined in a 2020 peace deal with the Trump administration that paved the way for the withdrawal of American troops, the last of whom are expected to leave at the end of the month.
When the Taliban was in power for the last time, they sheltered Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida group, which carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001. US officials fear that al-Qaida and other groups may break down. are rebuilding in Afghanistan now that the Taliban are back in power.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the Taliban detonated a statue depicting Abdul Ali Mazari, a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1996, when Islamic militants seized power from rival warlords. Mazari was a champion of Afghanistan’s Hazara ethnic minority, Shiites who were persecuted under the previous Sunni Taliban regime. It further raised concerns about whether they would keep their promises, including not seeking revenge on those who opposed them.
As a sign of the difficulties that any future Afghan government will face, the head of the Afghan Central Bank has declared that the country’s supply of physical US dollars is “close to zero”. Afghanistan has some $ 9 billion in reserves, Ajmal Ahmady tweeted, but most are held outside the country, with some $ 7 billion held in US Federal Reserve bonds, assets and gold.
Ahmady said the country had not received a planned shipment of money as part of the Taliban offensive.
“The next shipment never arrived,” he wrote. “Looks like our partners had a good understanding of what was going to happen.”
He said the lack of US dollars would likely lead to a depreciation of the local currency, the afghani, harming the country’s poor. Afghans have been lining up at ATMs for days, and many are withdrawing their savings.
Ahmady said the Taliban will find it difficult to access the country’s reserves due to international sanctions.
The “Taliban have won militarily – but must now rule,” he wrote. “It is not easy.”
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Faiez reported from Istanbul, Gannon from Guelph, Canada, and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press editors Sylvia Hui in London and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed.
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