By Reuters, published by The Straits Times
Kabul – Flag-waving protesters took to the streets of more Afghan cities today (Aug. 19) as popular opposition to the Taleban spread, and a witness said several people were killed when the militants fired on a crowd in Asadabad in the east.
“Our flag, our identity,” a crowd of men and women waving black, red and green national flags shouted in the capital Kabul, a video clip posted on social media showed, on the day Afghanistan celebrates independence from British control in 1919.
A witness reported gunshots fired near the rally, but they appeared to be armed Taleban shooting in the air.
One woman walked with an Afghan flag wrapped around her shoulders, and those marching chanted “God is greatest”.
At some protests elsewhere, media has reported people tearing down the white flag of the Taleban.
A Taleban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Some of the demonstrations are small, but, combined with the ongoing scramble by thousands of people to get to Kabul airport and flee the country, they underline the challenge the Taleban face to govern the country.
The Islamist militant movement conquered Afghanistan in lightning speed as foreign troops withdrew, surprising even its leaders and leaving them to fill a power vacuum in many places.
Since seizing Kabul on Sunday, the Taleban have presented a more moderate face to the world, saying they want peace, will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
During their previous rule from 1996-2001, they severely restricted women’s rights, staged public executions and blew up ancient Buddhist statues.
In Asadabad, capital of the eastern province of Kunar, several people were killed during a rally, but it was not clear if the casualties resulted from Taleban firing or from a stampede that it triggered, witness Mohammed Salim said.
“Hundreds of people came out on the streets,” Mr Salim said.
“At first I was scared and didn’t want to go but when I saw one of my neighbours joined in, I took out the flag I have at home.
“Several people were killed and injured in the stampede and firing by the Taliban.”
Protests also flared up in the city of Jalalabad and a district of Paktia province, both also in the east.
On Wednesday, Taleban fighters fired at protesters waving flags in Jalalabad, killing three, witnesses and media reported.
Media reported similar scenes in Asadabad and another eastern city, Khost, on Wednesday.
First Vice-President Amrullah Saleh, who is trying to rally opposition to the Taleban, expressed support for the protests.
“Salute those who carry the national flag and thus stand for dignity of the nation,” he said on Twitter.
Saleh said on Tuesday he was in Afghanistan and the “legitimate caretaker president” after President Ashraf Ghani fled as the Taleban took Kabul.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Mr Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan based in the old anti-Taleban stronghold of the Panjshir Valley north-east of Kabul, called for Western support to fight the Taleban.
“I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taleban,” wrote Massoud, the son of Amhad Shah Massoud, a veteran guerrilla leader assassinated by suspected Al-Qaeda militants on behalf of the Taleban in 2001.
Other former Afghan leaders, including former president Hamid Karzai, have been holding talks with the Taleban as they put together a new government.
While Kabul has been generally calm since Taleban forces entered on Sunday, the airport has been in chaos as people rushed for a way out of the country.
Twelve people have been killed in and around the airport since then, a Nato and a Taleban official said.
The deaths were caused either by gun shots or by stampedes, according to the Taleban official. He urged people who do not have the legal right to travel to go home.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone at the airport,” said the Taleban official, who declined to be identified.
In one scene captured on social media, a small girl was hoisted over the airport’s high perimeter wall and handed to a US soldier standing guard, underlining the desperation many people felt.
On Wednesday, witnesses said Taleban gunmen prevented people from getting into the airport compound.
A Taleban official said soldiers had fired into the air to disperse the crowd.
Gunmen unleashed sustained fire into the air today at several entrances to the airport, sending the crowds, including women clutching babies, scattering.
It was not clear if the men firing were Taleban or security staff helping US forces inside.
The United States and other Western powers pressed on with the evacuation of their nationals and some of their Afghan staff from the capital’s airport, from where about 8,000 people have been flown out since Sunday, a Western security official said.
Under a pact negotiated last year by former President Donald Trump’s administration, the United States agreed to withdraw its forces in exchange for a Taleban guarantee they would not let Afghanistan be used to launch terrorist attacks.
The Taleban also agreed not to attack foreign forces as they left.
US President Joe Biden said US forces would remain until the evacuation of Americans was finished, even if that meant staying past an Aug 31 US deadline for withdrawal.
CAPTION:
Top: This screengrab shows people carrying Afghan flags as they take part in an anti-Taliban protest in Jalalabad, yesterday Aug. 18, 2021. Photo: Reuters and published by The Straits Time
Home Page: This screengrab shows Afghan people protesting over the reported removal of Afghan flags replaced with the Taliban flags in Jalalabad, yesterday Aug. 18, 2021. Photo: AFP and published by The Straits Times
