Rapid Taliban takeover has sparked fear of reprisals
Kabul:
At least 20 people have been killed in and around the Kabul airport in the past seven days in evacuation efforts after the Taliban took the Afghan capital last week, a NATO official said Sunday.
“The crisis outside the Kabul airport is unfortunate. Our focus is to evacuate all foreigners as quickly as possible,” the official, who sought anonymity, told Reuters.
For the past week, airport crowds have increased every day, hampering operations as the United States and other countries attempt to evacuate thousands of their diplomats and citizens, as well as countless Afghans.
“Our forces keep a strict distance from the outer areas of the Kabul airport to avoid clashes with the Taliban,” the NATO official added.
The swift takeover by the Taliban has sparked fears of reprisals and a return to the harsh version of Islamic law that the Sunni Muslim group applied when it was in power 20 years ago.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NewsMadura staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
