Everything done in practice is being watched,” Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban deputy commander and the head of the group’s most violent wing, said in a recent radio broadcast to Taliban fighters. Residents are also supposed to provide food for Taliban fighters. In one northern Afghan district, the area’s new Taliban ruler went straight to the bottom line, trying to persuade residents they wouldn’t be killed out of hand. Mullah Basir Akhund, a former commander and member of the Taliban since 1994, said that cemeteries along the Pakistani border, where Taliban fighters have long been buried, are filling up faster than in years past. During a recent visit to a hospital in Quetta, a hub for the Taliban in Pakistan, Akhund said he saw more than 100 people, most of them Taliban fighters, waiting to be treated.

Source: Indian Express July 08, 2021 07:01 UTC