Women and young gils beware, the Talaban is coming to get you.
That is, if you can get over grieving your messiah Pascoe and his book of lies.
Taliban reign of terror begins again for girls
KABUL: About 20,000 Afghans who worked as interpreters for the US during its war in Afghanistan and fear deadly retribution from hardline Islamist Taliban insurgents have applied to be evacuated from the country to America.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said they were all former translators who the Taliban have publicly targeted for execution.
She said the US would also consider applications by the families of the interpreters, without specifying how many members would be allowed.
According to some estimates, the number of people eligible to leave Afghanistan would total about 100,000.
Officials said the evacuations would start this month.
For those who remain, there are growing fears of a return to the dark times. It was only a matter of days after the Taliban swept into Roya Sojod’s district in northern Afghanistan that it reverted to the “dark age” of their rule.
Riding motorbikes and pick-up trucks mounted with loudspeakers, the insurgents drove through the streets to announce the Islamic Emirate and its new laws. Men were ordered to the mosques to pray, while the women were told to stay at home. Huddling alone, they listened to the edicts about their bleak new reality.
“The Taliban banned women from going outside without the burqa and without male companions. They have banned music and instructed that men should not shave their beards,” Sojod, 26, from Jowzjan province, said.
“They are asking families to give their daughters to the commanders to marry them.”
A lightning advance by the Islamists after the final withdrawal by US troops has resulted in district after district falling in the past month as demoralised Afghan forces retreat to the cities.
At least 10 provincial capitals are under siege, leaving the extremists in near-total command of the countryside.
For Afghans old enough to recall the brutal Taliban regime of the 1990s, there is a grim familiarity to the restrictions. The Taliban insist that life continues as normal and claim the rights of women, religious minorities and a free press will be preserved. The thousands who have managed to escape tell a different story.
“We are in the brutal era of the Taliban again. Those who claim the Taliban have changed, I invite them to come and see in Jowzjan where they are restricting women from work and going outside,” Sojod said, adding: “We are in the dark again.”
In northern provinces, where Taliban fighters have seized border crossings, locals said beatings were already being meted out to rule-breakers. Curfews have been imposed and locals banned from wearing red and green clothes, the colour of the Afghan flag.
After the catastrophic cost of war, green shoots of civil society had begun to emerge, welcomed by a younger generation, and especially women.
“(The Taliban) are demanding girls and widows for their fighters to marry them off. This is really scary for young girls,” one woman said.
Sojod said: “The schools for girls are shutting down, and all the efforts of female students to get an education in recent years are being crushed. We are left with a bleak future.”
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