As the Taliban is gaining ground in Afghanistan by capturing many key cities in the country, the terror group is now forcing women to get married to its terrorists, a media report said on Thursday.
Afghans are also witnessing the execution of captured soldiers and unprovoked attacks on civilians by the Taliban in its recent captured areas.
Afghans pouring into Kabul and those still in Taliban-held areas say they have witnessed unprovoked attacks on civilians and executions of captured soldiers. In addition, they say, Taliban have demanded that communities turn over unmarried women to become “wives” for their terrorists-a form of sexual violence, human-rights groups say, Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The Taliban had publicly pledged to be magnanimous in victory, assuring government officials, troops and the people of Afghanistan that they have nothing to fear as ever-larger swaths of the country fall under their control. But their actions say otherwise, The Wall Street Journal added.
On Thursday, the US Embassy in Kabul had criticised the Taliban as it had received reports of the Taliban executing members of the Afghan military who had surrendered.
On Friday, the Taliban has captured Afghanistan’s Lashkar Gah, capital of the southern province of Helmand, after two weeks of heavy fighting, a police official said.
Government and senior armed forces officials flew by helicopter out of the government’s last stronghold in the town at about midnight on Thursday, said the official, who declined to be identified.
The terror group is extensively fighting with the Afghan government forces in an attempt to seize key cities and grab power soon after the US forces withdrawal from Afghanistan under a peace deal signed between the Taliban and Washington.