The Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said that Afghan drug trafficker Bashir Noorzai, had been released in a prisoner swap. Muttaqi added that Noorzai had been released in exchange for Mark Frerichs, who had been kept as a hostage by the Taliban.
According to the Taliban Foreign Minister, after a US court sentenced Noorzai to life imprisonment, he will no longer be held at the Guantanamo prison.
It is believed that Noorzai, an international drug trafficker, was one of the first to give financial support to Mullah Omar to establish the Taliban in 1990s in Afghanistan.
Taliban's Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that the group is investigating the alleged killing of captives in Panjshir. The Ministry added that in case videos published on social media are proved to be new and related to Panjshir province, perpetrators will be prosecuted.
In the past week, pictures and videos have been published on social media showing that the Taliban killed the National Resistance Front forces taken captive in coldblood.
At the same time, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson of the Taliban, had announced that the group had killed around 40 and arrested over 100 fighters of the National Resistance Front.
In one of these videos, a picture of a Panjshiri father and son had also been published, who was first captured and then shot by the Taliban.
The member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) consider it important to create an inclusive government in Afghanistan, according to the Samarkand declaration signed on Friday.
"The member states consider it extremely important to establish an inclusive government in Afghanistan with the participation of representatives of all ethnic, religious and political groups of Afghan society," the declaration read.
The SCO also advocated the formation of Afghanistan as an independent, neutral, united, democratic and peaceful state, free from terrorism, war and drugs, the document added.
The declaration came even as Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that peace in Afghanistan, where the Taliban formed government last year after toppling West-backed set up, will not only ensure peace in Pakistan but will also have positive impact on the regional development.
He added that “it would be a big mistake to ignore Afghanistan this time around”, emphasising that peace in region is interlinked with peace in Afghanistan. It is Pakistan’s opinion that strengthening Afghanistan in the security and counterterrorism domain should run parallel to the SCO’s socio-economic support to the Afghan people, he said.
However, President of Tajikistan, in the SCO meeting said that terrorism in Afghanistan is a threat for all country members of this organization. Emomali Rahmon added that drug trafficking from Afghanistan is still a challenge and the time has come to implement a system to combat it.
Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while indirectly referring to Pakistan’s delay in allowing passage of Indian relief to Afghanistan, called upon SCO member states to give transit access to each other and pitched for boosting connectivity for ensuring resilient supply chains for the region.
Heads of states from China, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan gathered in Samarkand to attend a summit of the central Asian security body, formed by Beijing. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are observer countries, while Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey attended the summit as “dialogue partner”.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai expressed "grave concern" about the escalation of the conflict between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front (NRF) in Panjshir province. Karzai called the conflict between the two sides "fratricide" and demanded an end to the war.
In a statement on Friday, Karzai urged the Taliban to facilitate the ground for national dialogue to ensure a peaceful settlement of the current war in Afghanistan.
He added, "The bitter experiences of the past have proved that war and bloodshed are not the solutions to problems, but on the contrary, they cause more destruction."
He stressed that "dialogue and understanding" is the only solution to the current crisis.
Over the past few weeks, violence and clashes have escalated in Panjshir province. The Taliban have started an offensive against the NRF forces and has deployed additional fighters to the province.
Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid recently claimed that as a result of the group’s offensive, 40 resistance fighters have died and over 100 of them had been arrested.
The Taliban published video clips too of killing the NRF captives in coldblood on social media which has received international criticism from watchdog groups.
NRF has accused the Taliban of committing war crimes in Panjshir and added that the group has inflicted high casualties to the Taliban forces during the ongoing clashes.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said that it has enough reasons to confirm the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, added that terrorists use areas in Afghanistan as sanctuaries.
Ahmad told Pakistani media on Thursday, "Pakistan and the international community have enough reasons to believe that some areas in Afghanistan are still being used by terrorist groups as safe havens."
Islamabad reiterated its stance on terrorist sanctuaries in Afghanistan after the Taliban denied the presence of Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed in Afghanistan.
However, a Taliban source told Afghanistan International on Thursday that Pakistan raised the issue of Masood Azhar’s presence in Afghanistan and his handover to Islamabad after the Taliban arrested four members of Jaish-e-Mohammed in Kandahar.
A diplomatic source also said that Pakistan demanded the Taliban to hand over Azhar to Islamabad so that the country could get out of the Financial Action Task Force gray list.
A diplomatic source in Islamabad said that last week the FATF had asked Pakistan to arrest Azhar.
Pakistan has been on the gray list of the FATF for several years now for failing to check money laundering leading to terror financing. Pakistan is trying to get out of the FATF's gray list by completing the required 27 indicators.
Taliban fighters killed six Hazara people in a deliberate attack on the ethnic group in Afghanistan’s Ghor province, Amnesty International said on Friday following a new investigation.
The international body added that the attack is part of a wider pattern of unlawful targeted killings of people whom the Taliban perceives as adversaries, in this case being both members of the Hazara community and those who were associated with the former Afghan government. Amnesty stated that the violent deaths are further shocking proof that the Taliban continue to persecute, torture and extrajudicially execute Hazara people.
Amnesty International urged the Taliban to investigate these killings and ensure that those responsible are prosecuted in accordance with international human rights obligations and standards.
It added that if the de facto authorities cannot provide justice, it called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open full investigations into all cases of extrajudicial executions. It also called for an independent accountability mechanism in and for Afghanistan.”
“The Taliban must immediately end this cruel pattern of targeted killings and, as the de facto authorities, ensure the protection of all Afghans,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
Citing another example, the report stated that on 26 June 2022, the Taliban detained and unlawfully executed four men during a night raid operation in search of a former security official. The body of at least one of those executed showed signs of torture. A woman and a 12-year-old girl were also killed during the raid.
Amnesty International documented similar extrajudicial executions of Hazara people in Ghazni province in July 2021, and Daykundi province in August 2021. “Despite publicly promising not to target former government officials, the Taliban have still not investigated or prosecuted anyone for the killings,” the report said.
Stating examples of various cases of extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests and torture, Amnesty International said that it believes the Taliban justification is a pretext for targeting ethnic minorities and soldiers associated with the former government.
It asked the Taliban to immediately cease these acts of revenge and ensure employees of the former government and their families can live safely in Afghanistan.