Taliban kill woman ‘for not wearing burqa’ after vowing to respect rights – World News

Taliban thugs gunned down a woman in the street for not wearing a burqa after promising to respect women’s rights when they took control of Kabul yesterday

Taliban thugs executed an Afghan woman in the street for not wearing a burqa just hours after the Islamists vowed to protect women’s rights.

The woman was reportedly executed by a rampaging death squad in Talogon, in Afghanistan’s northeastern Takhar province, for not wearing Islamic dress in public.

A photo of the alleged killing, released by Fox News, shows a pool of blood spreading from the woman’s body as traumatised relatives mourn around her.

Though the woman is said to have been photographed after the Taliban’s takeover, the exact time the picture was taken is not known.

In another clip, a convoy of Taliban fighters were seen rampaging through the streets of Kabul, firing their automatic rifles in the air as they reportedly hunted human rights advocates and government officials.

The chaos and bloodshed comes after Taliban leaders seized the presidential palace and later declared Kabul theirs in a televised victory speech on Tuesday.

They vowed to reintroduce Sharia law, but promised a softer regime than the cruel and harsh repressions rolled out during their 1996-2001 rule.

In their speech, they said the Taliban is “committed to the rights of women”, but only under Sharia law.

Women in particular were ruthlessly repressed by the Islamists 20 years ago. Laws denied females education, working rights, and banned them from being in public without a male escort.

They also forced all women to cover up in all-enveloping burqas.

In the days since the takeover, militants have urged women to go back to school and work.

One spokesman even granted an interview to a female TV journalist, which would have been unheard of 20 years ago.

But, on the streets of the country, houses of prominent Afghan women have been “marked” by militants for repercussions, reports say.

Men, women and children gathered at Kabul airport have already felt the harsh treatment the Taliban doles out to dissenters as fighters bludgeoned them with whips and cords of knotted rope.

Pictures from the scene show traumatised relatives carrying children, beaten and bloodied, and citizens laying lifeless on the floor.

Nearby, at the airport’s north entrance, women were filmed pleading with US soldiers to let them into Kabul airport, where they desperately hoped to be evacuated.

A clip of desperate women reaching through a metal gate and crying, “help, the Taliban are coming” as the weight of the crowd crushed them circulated on social media today.

The women are just a few of the 25,000 panicked citizens trying to enter the Hamid Karzai airport through its northern military gate.

Citizens have flocked to the airport in recent days, hoping for safe passage out of Afghanistan after Taliban fighters conquered Kabul in a lightning-fast offensive.

It comes as Boris Johnson’s spokesman said the Government is aiming to to airlift 1,000 people out of Afghanistan every day in seven flights. He also promised to take on 25,000 Afghan refugees.

Armed Forces chief General Nick Carter has warned that it’s “critical” to evacuate as many people as possible over the next 24 hours.

Despite the Government’s promises of a large-scale evacuation, Sir Keir Starmer today tabled an NGO report saying a plane leaving Kabul with hardly any passengers because the Afghans couldn’t get close to the plane – due to Taliban guards operating gates in.

According to reports, very few people have been granted access. Dozens of desperate citizens have tried to rush the gates whenever they were opened.

The outer gates are only the first barrier to departure, with four more manned by Taliban fighters inside the complex, which have taken some evacuees two days to move through.

Though some of the passengers are carrying travel documents, many have chanced going to the airport in the hopes of get out of the country, after images were circulated of American planes taking Afghans on board.

Citizens crushed between their fellow evacuation hopefuls have recalled being beaten by Taliban gunman, with rifle butts and knotted rope, and often putting gun barrels in their faces.

More than 2,200 diplomats and other civilians have been evacuated from Afghanistan on military flights, a Western security official said on Wednesday, as efforts gathered pace to get people out after the Taliban seized the capital.

The Taliban have said they want peace and will not take revenge against old enemies. They also claimed they would respect the
rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.

But thousands of Afghans, many of whom helped US-led foreign forces over two decades, are desperate to leave.

“We are continuing at a very fast momentum, logistics show no glitches as of now,” the Western security official said.