Taliban going door-to-door searching for 'foreign collaborators' in Kabul

The Taliban are going door-to-door searching for “foreign collaborators”, a former minister and a journalist have said.

Interpreters, diplomatic staff, humanitarian workers, and holders of Special Immigration Visas (SIVs) to travel to the US are being targeted, they said.

“An SIV holder was beaten and tortured by the Taliban, SIV holder was working closely with the US embassy in Kabul,” Canada-based Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary tweeted on Monday.

“An American citizen’s home was raided, he was questioned and verbally abused. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of incidents tells me.”

Former deputy defence minister Tamim Asey said the Taliban had active search operations in several districts in Kabul.

“Taliban have started mass house to house and door to door search operations in districts 4,6,8,10, 13 and 18 of Kabul since two days now looking for 'foreigner collaborators' i.e. interpreters, SIV holders and staff who worked for embassies, contractors, NGOs et al.”

He added that they were also searching for “'apostate regime members of security forces and officials', i.e. previous govt officials.”

“Taliban have also started monitoring social media and are going after dissidents and people who criticizes them online. This situation is worse in the provinces with little reporting.

“Today, Taliban’s new chief of army Qari Fasihuddin staff promised to crush ‘resistance’ ‘dissidents who destabilizes their govt.’ and ‘apostate foreign collaborators’. #AFG is now an authoritarian clerical dictatorship.”

This is not the first time that there have been reports of door-to-door searches for foreign workers since the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital.

Last month a confidential document by the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, which provides intelligence to the UN, warned that the Taliban were targeting “collaborators”, including people who worked for NATO forces or the previous Afghan government.

"Taliban are intensifying the hunt-down of all individuals and collaborators with the former regime, and if unsuccessful, target and arrest the families and punish them according to their own interpretation of Sharia law," the report read.

"Particularly at risk are individuals in central positions in military, police and investigative units."

Since seizing Kabul, the Taliban have sought to present a more moderate face to the world, saying they want peace and will not take revenge on old enemies.