Taliban declare ‘amnesty’ across land

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with full dignity and honesty has announced a complete amnesty for all Afghanistan, especially those who were with the opposition or supported the occupiers for years and recently,” he said.

Other Taliban leaders have said they won’t seek revenge on those who worked with the Afghan government or foreign countries.

But some in Kabul allege Taliban fighters have lists of people who cooperated with the government and are seeking them out. A broadcaster in Afghanistan said she was hiding at a relative’s house, too frightened to return home much less return to work following reports that the insurgents are also looking for journalists. She said she and other women didn’t believe the Taliban had changed their ways. She spoke on condi- tion of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

Samangani addressed the concerns of women, saying they were “the main victims of the more than 40 years of crisis in Afghanistan.”

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is ready to provide women with environment to work and study, and the presence of women in different (government) structures according to Islamic law and in accordance with our cultural values,” he said. That would be a marked departure from the last time the Taliban were in power, when women were largely confined to their homes. Samangani didn’t describe exactly what he meant by Islamic law, implying people already knew the rules.

In another sign of the Taliban’s efforts to portray a new image, a female television anchor on the private broadcaster Tolo interviewed a Taliban official on camera Tuesday in a studio — an interaction that once would have been unthinkable. Meanwhile, women in hijabs demonstrated briefly in Kabul, holding signs demanding the Taliban not “eliminate women” from public life.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, noted both the Taliban’s vows and the fears of everyday Afghans.

“Such promises will need to be honored, and for the time being — again understandably, given past history — these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism,” he said in a statement. “There have been many hard-won advances in human rights over the past two decades. The rights of all Afghans must be defended.”

Germany suspended development aid to Afghanistan, estimated at 250 million euros ($294 million) for 2021. Other funding separately goes to security services and humanitarian aid. Sweden indicated it would slow aid to the country, but Britain committed to an increase.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said humanitarian aid could rise by 10%. He said the aid budget would be reconfigured for development and humanitarian purposes and that the Taliban would not get any money previously earmarked for security.

Meanwhile, Kabul’s international airport, the only way out for many, reopened to military evacuation flights under the watch of American troops.

All flights were suspended on Monday when thousands of people rushed the airport, desperate to leave the coun- try. In shocking scenes captured on video, some clung to a plane as it took off and then fell to their deaths. At least seven people died in chaos at the airport, U.S. officials said.

Stefano Pontecorvo, NATO’s senior civilian representative to Afghanistan, posted video online Tuesday showing the runway empty with U.S. troops on the tarmac.

“I see airplanes landing and taking off,” he wrote on Twitter.

Overnight, flight-tracking data showed a U.S. military plane taking off for Qatar. A British military cargo plane, headed to Kabul, took off from Dubai.
Still, there were indications that the situation remained tenuous. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, now operating from the airport, urged Americans to register online for evacuations but not come to the airport before being contacted.

The German Foreign Ministry said a first German military transport plane landed in Kabul, but it took off with only seven people on board due to continued chaos. Another left later with 125 people.

By late Tuesday, the Taliban entered the civilian half of the airport, firing into the air to drive out around 500 people there, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists. That crowd ended up outside of the airport in a nearby roundabout.

Across Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross said thousands had been wounded in fighting as the Taliban swept across the country in recent days. However, in many places, security forces and politicians handed over their provinces and bases without a fight, likely fearing what would happen when the last American troops withdrew as planned at the end of the month.

As U.S. President Joe Biden did, NATO Secretary- General Jens Stoltenberg blamed the swift collapse of the country on a failure of Afghan leadership. But he added that the alliance must also uncover flaws in its effort to train the Afghan military.

Talks continued Tuesday between the Taliban and several Afghan government officials, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council. Discussions focused on how a Taliban-dominated govern- ment would operate given the changes in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, rather than just dividing up who controlled what ministries, officials with knowledge of the negotiations said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential details of the talks.

President Ashraf Ghani earlier fled the country amid the Taliban advance and his whereabouts remain unknown.