KABUL — At least three people were killed in
anti-Taliban protests in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, witnesses
said, as the Islamist group moved to consolidate power and Western countries
ramped up evacuations from a chaotic Kabul airport.
اضافة اعلان
The new government may take the form of a ruling council,
with Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in overall charge, a senior
member of the group said.
But Afghanistan would not be a democracy, Waheedullah
Hashimi told Reuters: "It is sharia and that is it."
After seizing power at the weekend, the Taliban
promisedpeaceful rule. They said they would not take revenge against old enemies and
would respect the rights
of women within the framework of Islamic law.
A protest in Jalalabad, 150km from
Kabul on the main road to
Pakistan, was an early test of that commitment.
Two witnesses and a former police official told Reuters that
Taliban fighters had opened fire when local residents tried to install
Afghanistan's national flag at a square in the city, killing three people and
injuring more than a dozen.
Taliban spokesmen were not immediately reachable for
comment.
Thousands of Afghans, many of whom helped US-led foreign
forces in the two decades since an invasion ended the Taliban's 1996–2001 rule,
are desperate to leave the country.
Taliban commanders and soldiers fired into the air to
disperse crowds outside Kabul airport, a Taliban official said. "We have
no intention to injure anyone," he told Reuters.
Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani, who left the country
as Taliban fighters seized control, is in the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf
state said.
About 5,000 diplomats, security staff, aid workers and
Afghans have been evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hours and military
flights will continue around the clock, a Western official told Reuters.
"It's absolutely hectic and chaos out there," the official said.
The United Nations said it had begun moving up to 100
international staff to Kazakhstan but said the measure was temporary and
stressed it is "committed to staying and delivering in support of the
Afghan people in their hour of need".
The UN has about 300 international
staff and 3,000 local staff in Afghanistan.
Actions not words
The Taliban have suggested they will impose their laws more
softly than during their former harsh rule, and a senior official said on
Wednesday that the group's leaders would be less reclusive than in the past.
"Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our
leaders," the senior Taliban official told Reuters.
Hashimi, who has access to the group's decision-making, said
the role of women, including their right to work and education and how they
should dress, would ultimately be decided by a council of Islamic scholars.
"They will decide whether they should wear hijab,
burqa, or only (a) veil plus abaya or something, or not. That is up to
them," he told Reuters.
Under previous Taliban rule, also guided by sharia religious
law, women were prevented from working, girls were not allowed to go to school
and women had to wear all-enveloping burqas to go out.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on
Wednesday: "We'll see what they do, whether it will be according to the
pronouncements that they made."
Echoing that comment and those of other Western leaders,
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Taliban would be judged "by
its actions rather than by its words".
'Time will tell'
Many Afghans are skeptical of the Taliban promises. Some
said they could only wait and see.
"My family lived under the Taliban and maybe they
really want to change or have changed but only time will tell and it's going to
become clear very soon," said Ferishta Karimi, who runs a tailoring shop
for women.
The Taliban seized Kabul on Sunday as Western forces
withdrew under a deal that included a Taliban promise not to attack them as
they leave.
US President Joe Biden has faced a barrage of criticism
about the withdrawal, including from British lawmakers on Wednesday who called
Afghanistan's collapse into Taliban hands a failure of intelligence, leadership
and moral duty.
Biden has said he had to decide between asking US forces to
fight endlessly or follow through on the withdrawal deal of his predecessor
Donald Trump.
US forces running the airport initially had to stop
evacuation flights after thousands of frightened Afghans swamped
the airfield.
Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan said his team had
evacuated about 700 people on Tuesday while Germany's foreign minister said it
had evacuated 500 people in total.
Asked whether Britain hoped to take 1,000 people out of
Afghanistan a day, Johnson's spokesman said they were aiming to operate at that
capacity.
France said it had moved out 25 of its nationals and 184
Afghans, and Australia said 26 people had arrived on its first flight back from
Kabul.
Denmark said it had evacuated 84 people on a military plane.
"Everyone wants out," said one Afghan man who
arrived in Frankfurt on Wednesday with his wife and son on a flight via
Tashkent. "We saved ourselves but we couldn't rescue our families."
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