Taliban claims women will still be allowed to work – despite drawing up ‘kill list’ – World News

Taliban representative Suhail Shaheen said that women will be allowed to be educated up to university level, but said there is a “general framework” they will have to live by

The Taliban claims that women will be allowed to work and continue to be educated up to university level – despite reports it has drawn up a ‘kill list’ of prominent figures.

Today a spokesman for the group, which has seized control in Afghanistan warned women would be required to wear a hijab “for their security”.

Although leaders have claimed they do not intend to murder opponents, it is understood that women will face torture and death while targets on a ‘kill list’ could be murdered on their doorsteps.

It comes amid reports that the homes of prominent women have been marked in Kabul, leaving them fearful for their lives.

Taliban representative Suhail Shaheen told Sky News that women will be allowed to work and be educated up to university level.

Under the new regime, he said, women will be expected to wear a hijab, stating: “These are not our rules, these are Islamic rules.”

He claimed this was ‘For their security”.

Describing the organisation’s attitude toward women’s freedom, he continued: “Our policy is clear – they can have access to education and work, that is one thing.

“They can hold positions, but that position they can hold is in the light of Islamic rule – so there is a general framework for them.”

Mr Shaheen denied that the Taliban intends to murder members of the previous government, claiming their lives “are safe”.

Taliban forces have reportedly vowed to reintroduce barbaric laws so they can resume brutalising women and gay people as they did in the 90s.

There have already been sickening reports of women being shot dead and girls as young as 12 being dragged from their homes so they can become a child bride.

Reports claims thousands gathered to witness an execution in Kandahar at a sports stadium while a woman was reportedly sentenced to be stoned to death in Samangan.

Reports from Afghanistan suggest that contrary to the Taliban claims, women are already being forced to hide in fear.

Heather Barr, of Human Rights Watch, told The Independent: “Women are being told they can’t leave their house without a mahram, which is a male family member. Women are being forced out of their jobs.

“These are women working as professionals who have trained for a long time.”

The Taliban seized control of Kabul’s presidential palace on Sunday after marching into the capital having seized every other city in the country.

The Islamist group who stopped women from working and administered punishments including public stoning during their previous 1996-2001 rule, swept the country in days as US-backed government forces melted away.

While the Taliban have pledged there will be no retribution against opponents and promised to respect the rights of women, minorities and foreigners, many Afghans are sceptical.

Heartbreaking scenes show thousands of people at Hamid Karzai International Airport desperately seeking to escape the country, with many clinging to departing planes.

At least eight locals were killed as troops started evacuating thousands of Western officials – 6,000 of them British – and aides from Afghanistan.

Some were crushed and others who held on to a departing US military jet fell hundreds of feet to their deaths.

NHS frontline medic Dr Waheed Arian says he fears for his family in Kabul and said the unfolding humanitarian disaster has triggered the PTSD he suffered as a result of the country’s brutal civil war.

Dr Arian spent much of his childhood sheltering in cellars as bombs exploded around him, and almost died from tuberculosis in a Pakistani refugee camp after his family escaped the conflict.

Heartbreaking scenes from his homeland today show people desperately trying to get out as the government crumbles and the Taliban returns to power.

In recent days he said he has cried for the millions whose lives are endangered and who have been displaced like he was while he was growing up.

Dr Arian told The Mirror: “I’m in a state of shock, it’s unbelievable, it’s a humanitarian disaster that’s unfolding so rapidly.

Emily Winterbotham, director, terrorism and conflict at defence and security think tank Rusi (Royal United Services Institute) said terror groups “will be watching with interest”.

Speaking to the PA news agency, she said: “There are terror groups in Afghanistan, there are a number of different groups already there – al Qaida, Isis – and they will be watching this with interest.

“I think watching it with interest from the perspective of what it means for international military engagement overseas, the future of Afghanistan itself and the opportunities that they might have to capitalise either on a Taliban government or on ensuing insecurity that we may see in the weeks and months to come.

“Finally, I guess, they’ll be thinking about what their relationships are with the new guys in town.”

She added: “There are numerous different groups that operate out of Afghanistan, but I think the ones that we’re most concerned about from an international perspective is obviously al Qaida which, despite the international intervention in 2001… there is still a foothold for al Qaida in the country, it’s never really disappeared, but obviously it hasn’t operated from the country itself for a number of years.”

The director-general of MI5 warned in July that terrorists “will seek to take advantage” of chances to “rebuild” as troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

Ken McCallum suggested it could be “challenging” to disrupt potential threats without “having our own forces on the ground”.