UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) – The Taliban denied on Monday a United Nations report of killing more than 100 members of the former Afghan government and its security forces.
“After general amnesty, no one is allowed to harm anyone. If any revenge-taking incident reported we would investigate and punish the perpetrators,” the Taliban caretaker government’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in his Twitter account, CGTN reported.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier the United Nations has received “credible allegations” that more than 100 former members of the Afghan government, its security forces and those who worked with international troops have been killed since the Taliban took over the country Aug. 15.
In a report obtained by The Associated Press, Guterres said that “more than two-thirds” of the victims were alleged to result from extrajudicial killings by the Taliban or its affiliates, despite the Taliban’s announcement of “general amnesties” for those affiliated with the former government and U.S.-led forces.
The UN political mission in Afghanistan also received “credible allegations of extrajudicial killings of at least 50 individuals suspected of affiliation with ISIL-KP,” the Daesh terrorist group operating in Afghanistan, Guterres said in the report to UN Security Council.
He added that despite Taliban assurances, the UN political mission has also received credible allegations “of enforced disappearances and other violations impacting the right to life and physical integrity” of former government and coalition members.
The UN report details a government clampdown on anti-Taliban protests, and adds that “an entire complex social and economic system is shutting down” in the war-torn South Asian country.
The Taliban leadership has not responded to the report so far and the veracity of the claims made by the world body cannot be independently verified.
Afghanistan has been in the grip of a major humanitarian disaster, worsened by the freezing of assets worth billions of dollars by the international community.
Since last August, international aid, which financed nearly 80 percent of the war-ravaged country’s budget, has been suspended and nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank have been frozen by Washington, contributing to the pitiable plight of millions of Afghans.
This is while unemployment has skyrocketed in the country and civil servants’ salaries have not been paid for months, as banks are out of cash and the government is grappling with dearth of funds.
In another development, U.S. President Joe Biden called on the Taliban to release American hostage Mark Frerichs if they expect the United States to recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
“Two years ago tomorrow, U.S. Navy veteran Mark Frerichs was taken hostage in Afghanistan. A civil engineer, he spent a decade helping the people of Afghanistan. He has done nothing wrong. And yet, for two years the Taliban has held him captive,” Biden said in a statement on Sunday.
“The Taliban must immediately release Mark before it can expect any consideration of its aspirations for legitimacy. This is not negotiable,” it said.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. American forces occupied the country for about two decades on the pretext of fighting against the Taliban. But as the U.S. forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban stormed into Kabul, weakened by continued foreign occupation.