Taliban surge in north Afghanistan sends thousands fleeing

Russia warns US against deployment in Central Asia

Moscow: Russia has strongly warned the US against deploying its troops in the former Soviet Central Asian nations following their withdrawal from Afghanistan, a senior diplomat said in remarks published on Tuesday. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow conveyed the message to Washington during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with US President Joe Biden in Geneva last month. AP

Camp Istiqlal (Afghanistan), July 13

Sakina, 12, walked with her family for 10 days after the Taliban seized her village in northern Afghanistan and burned down the local school.

They are now among around 50 families living in a makeshift camp on a rocky patch of land on the edge of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

They roast in plastic tents under scorching heat that reaches 44 degrees Celsius at midday. There are no trees, and the only bathroom for the entire camp is a tattered tent pitched over a foul-smelling hole.

As the Taliban surge through northern Afghanistan — a traditional stronghold of US-allied warlords and an area dominated by the country’s ethnic minorities — thousands of families like Sakina’s are fleeing their homes, fearful of living under the insurgents’ rule.

In the last 15 days, Taliban advances have driven more than 5,600 families from their homes, most of them in the northern reaches of the country, according to the government’s Refugee and Repatriations Ministry.

Sakina said it was the middle of the night when her parents packed up their belongings and fled their village of Abdulgan in Balkh province, but not before the invading Taliban set fire to her school. Sakina said she doesn’t understand why her school was burned.

In Camp Istiqlal, there’s not a single light, and sometimes she hears noises in the pitch blackness of night.

In areas they control, the Taliban have imposed their own fees and taxes. Ashor Ali, a truck driver, said he pays the Taliban a 12,000 Afghani ($147) toll for every load of coal he brings from a Taliban-controlled part of neighboring Samangan province to Mazar-e-Sharif. That amounts to more than half of what he makes on each haul.

The Taliban are attending international conferences, even sending their former ministers on missions to Afghanistan from Qatar, where they have a political office, to assure Afghans they have nothing to fear from them, especially minorities. The group still espouses Islamic rule but says its methods and tenets are less severe.

But if it’s a gentler face they are seeking to portray, fleeing residents say it seems many Taliban commanders in the field either haven’t gotten the message or aren’t listening.

The camp residents say no one has come to help them. AP