KABUL (Dispatches) – Afghan government forces have rescued at least 30 people from captivity at the hands of the Taliban militant group in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, officials say.
Afghan and foreign special forces launched the rescue operation on Sunday, raiding a Taliban-run "prison” in Helmand’s Nawzad district.
Police officials said 20 of those rescued had been taken captive by the Taliban militant group because of helping the government or had been family members of Afghan army and security forces.
Among the rescued captives were also four children aged under 12 and two policemen.
The Taliban claimed in a statement that those rescued had been awaiting "trial” over accusations of robbery, kidnapping, personal disputes, and other crimes.
During the Sunday operation, one Taliban militant was killed and two others were wounded, police said.
Afghanistan is engulfed by violence and many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops. The United States and its NATO allies invaded and occupied the country as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror in 2001, which toppled a Taliban regime.
Over the past 16 years, the Taliban have been carrying out militancy across Afghanistan, killing and displacing government officials, security forces, and civilians.
In another development, the European Union compound in the Afghan capital of Kabul is under investigation for having a role in an alcohol-smuggling ring in the Muslim country, where possession and consumption of alcohol is illegal.
Leaked Facebook and WhatsApp messages forwarded to EU investigators appear to show that beer, wine and spirits purchased for the exclusive consumption of European officials in Afghanistan were instead sold on to local businessmen in the Asian country, The Guardian wrote on Friday.
According to the daily, EU investigators are probing reports that the bloc’s headquarters in Kabul is at the center of the illicit alcohol-smuggling ring across Afghanistan, using unused fridges and adapted gas canisters "to sneak bottles of alcohol brands” out of the official EU-designated area.
The report further notes that despite illegality of alcohol in the predominantly Muslim nation, "a thriving black market exists” in the Afghan capital, where "special dispensation to import alcohol has been given to foreign powers, including the EU.”
This is while an internal investigating unit of the EU is examining the claims, said a spokesman as cited in the report. The allegations, it adds, "could cause major embarrassment for the European External Action Service [EEAS], which acts as the EU diplomatic corps and oversees the mission in the Afghan capital.”
The focus of the allegations is on the EU’s compound located in the Shahr-e-Naw neighborhood of north-west Kabul where, according to a former staff member, "up to 40 European expats and 70 locals have worked in the three-story office building and adjoining restaurant, Tawoos.”