Original reporting by Hamed Neman for Etilaatroz; translated and further developed by KabulNow.
M. Muradi no longer wants to return to his home in Malistan district of Ghazni province. The elderly man was forced to leave his home and seek refuge in Kabul a few months ago after spending two weeks in Taliban custody, where he says he was subjected to relentless torture. He now lives with his daughter in Kabul, while his elderly wife and two other daughters remain in Malistan.
Muradi says he was detained during the summer of 2026 while irrigating his farmland and taken to the district center. There, he alleges, Taliban members tortured him day and night for two weeks.
His ordeal, he says, began with demands for a weapon the Taliban link to his son, a young man who served in the Afghan security forces under the former government and now works as a laborer abroad.
After taking Muradi to the district center, Taliban officials demanded that he hand over a weapon. Muradi says he had kept a receipt at home showing that the family had paid money in place of the weapon. He told the officials that they had already paid for it and that this was the third time they had been asked to provide a weapon. He questioned why the Taliban continued to pursue his family despite the receipt.
According to Muradi, the district intelligence chief ordered his torture after he challenged the demand.
“Every night after dinner, two Taliban members would attack me with sticks as thick as shovel handles, beating my thighs and back. They would come again in the morning and around noon, slapping and punching me in the head and face. The more I told them that I was an elderly man and could not endure the beatings, the worse they became,” he recounted.
Three days after his arrest, Muradi’s wife traveled to the district center with one of his relatives. They presented the receipt, which, according to Muradi, showed that the family had paid 100,000 afghanis (about $1,540) in 2024 instead of handing over a weapon. The Taliban, however, refused to accept it, claiming that the document did not bear a signature.
Muradi says he repeatedly begged his captors to stop beating him, offering to pay money or do whatever they demanded. His pleas, he alleges, only provoked further violence.
“One night, they beat my back with a stick so severely that I lost consciousness. When I came to, hair had been torn from the crown of my head,” he said.
After two weeks in detention, Muradi was released following mediation by community elders and the payment of 50,000 afghanis (about $770). He says the Taliban did not provide a receipt for this payment either.
It was the third time he had been forced to pay money to the Taliban over the weapon they link to his son: first in 2022, again in 2024, and most recently in 2026.
After his release, Muradi traveled to Kabul, where he is now looking for a place to live permanently, hoping never to return to Malistan. But life in the capital is expensive, and he says he cannot afford to establish a new home. He has already sold his vehicles to meet the Taliban’s demands and says he has little of value left to sell.
“I have nothing valuable left,” he says.
Similar Cases in Ghazni and Daikundi
Muradi’s account is not an isolated allegation. Similar demands have reportedly been made against residents of Jaghori district in Ghazni province, where a local source says people are being summoned, detained and pressured to hand over weapons or pay money in their place.
A source in Jaghori who requested anonymity for security reasons told KabulNow that since July 15, 2026, Taliban members have been summoning two or three people from each village in the Dah-Murda area and taking them to Sang-e-Masha, the district center.
According to the source, the detainees are told that two or three firearms have been registered in their names and that they must surrender them.
Some residents, the source said, insist that they do not possess any weapons. The Taliban, however, allegedly maintain that the weapons are registered in their names and demand either the firearms or their cash equivalent.
“People say they have no weapons, but the Taliban tell them that the weapons are registered in their names: either pay the money or bring the guns,” the source said.
The source added that residents are being subjected to beatings and torture to force them to admit that they possess weapons. Fear has spread through the affected communities, the source said, while the amounts demanded vary according to the type of firearm allegedly involved.
According to the source, residents are being charged 50,000 afghanis (about $770) for a Kalashnikov rifle and between 100,000 and 150,000 afghanis ($1,540 to $2,310) for a PK machine gun, a heavier belt-fed weapon.
The source identified the Taliban’s district police command and intelligence department as the institutions whose personnel are involved in the alleged practice.
Similar allegations have emerged from other parts of Ghazni and neighboring Daikundi province.
On September 24, 2026, Hasht-e Subh Daily, citing local sources in Nawur district, reported that Taliban members had arrested and tortured four residents of the Khawat and Gorg Kushtah villages in Nawur district of Ghazni on allegations of possessing weapons. According to local sources, two of the detainees were forced to pay money equivalent to the value of two firearms to secure their release. The other two were released on guarantees but were ordered to provide two weapons, or their cash equivalent, within a week. The sources said the four men had no military backgrounds.
In August 2026, Afghanistan Women’s Voice also reported that Taliban intelligence officials were pressuring residents in Daikundi to provide weapons or money. The report cited local sources who alleged that intelligence officials had recruited informants to monitor residents’ daily activities and identify people believed to possess weapons or have links to former security personnel.
Most of these cases come from Hazara-majority areas: Malistan, Jaghori and Nawur districts in Ghazni province, and parts of Daikundi province. Taken together, they raise concerns that demands for weapons are being used not only to enforce disarmament but also to extract money from residents who say they have no firearms. Similar demands have, however, also been reported elsewhere, including in Panjshir and Samangan provinces.
Former Security Personnel and Their Families Targeted
Former members of Afghanistan’s security forces and their relatives appear among those affected by the reported demands. In some cases, sources say, the people targeted have no weapons in their possession but are nevertheless ordered to pay an amount equivalent to their alleged value.
Rawadari, an Afghan human rights organization, said in its 2025 annual report, published in March 2026, that accusing former government employees of holding weapons is a common way for the Taliban to pressure them, and that those detained have often had to pay money in place of the weapons. In one case it documented, intelligence officials in Kajran district of Daikundi detained the 70-year-old father of a former military officer in October 2025, held him for seven days, tortured him and demanded that he surrender 12 weapons.
A report published by Afghanistan Women’s Voice in December 2024 documented allegations that Taliban members had detained and tortured former members of local Hazara “uprising forces”, militias formed to resist the Taliban in the final years of the former government, in parts of Uruzgan and Daikundi provinces, demanding weapons or money in return. According to the report, some families were pressured to provide firearms even when the former fighters were living abroad. The report also alleged that relatives, including children, had been detained to force families to comply.
The repeated demands have left some residents facing an impossible choice: hand over weapons they say they do not have, pay substantial sums they cannot afford, or risk detention and physical abuse.
For impoverished families, such payments can mean selling essential assets, borrowing money or abandoning their homes.
A Recurring Pattern of Extortion
Reports of Taliban members demanding weapons or money from residents date back to the early months following the group’s return to power in August 2021.
In August 2022, Hasht-e Subh Daily reported that Taliban members were torturing residents of Jaghori district for refusing to surrender weapons. Local sources said the group was entering homes by force at night while searching for firearms.
In September 2022, the newspaper reported that Taliban members in Nawur district had demanded that residents hand over 200 light and heavy weapons or pay money equivalent to their value. According to the report, the names of 80 residents had been placed on a list, and they were given one week to comply. The newspaper also reported that 20 community elders who went to the district center to resolve the dispute were detained.
In October 2022, Hasht-e Subh Daily also reported that residents of Khwaja Omari district in Ghazni were being detained and tortured over alleged weapons possession. According to the newspaper, one farmer sold a dairy cow, which was a source of income for his family, to raise 100,000 afghanis (about $1,540) to secure his son’s release.
In December 2022, residents of Takhar province also alleged that Taliban intelligence officials were detaining and torturing civilians over claims that they possessed weapons.
A resident of Chaman Khusda village in Farkhar district told KabulNow at the time that Taliban intelligence officials had detained two men accused of possessing weapons and transferred them to Taloqan, the provincial capital. The source said the men were ordinary civilians who had neither government-issued nor privately owned weapons and were allegedly targeted because they lived near a local commander.
Faizullah, a pseudonym used to protect his identity, said Taliban members had imprisoned his brother on the grounds that he had possessed weapons under the former government. According to Faizullah, the Taliban demanded 100,000 afghanis (about $1,540) for his brother’s release.
A resident of Taloqan, identified by the pseudonym Mohammad, described what he said was a broader pattern of abuse.
“Taliban members take ordinary, helpless people to their command centers and security offices, subject them to severe torture and demand large sums of money by force,” he told KabulNow.
He said residents had become desperate and called on the Taliban leadership to address the situation.
Mawlawi Barakatullah, then spokesman for Taliban intelligence in Takhar, denied allegations that detainees had been beaten or tortured. He said, however, that the individuals had been identified through information indicating that they possessed weapons under the former government but had failed to surrender them.
In the same month, Taliban intelligence officials detained Zabihullah Noori, a journalist with Takharistan Radio, at his home in Taloqan. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Afghanistan Journalists Center, he was held for two days and beaten. Accounts of the reason differed: residents linked his detention to accusations that he held weapons, his family linked it to his reporting, and a Taliban spokesman in Takhar said at the time that the arrest had nothing to do with journalism. Noori later left the country.
Human rights monitors have documented similar cases since then.
In its mid-year human rights report covering January to June 2025, the Afghan human rights organization Rawadari documented cases involving the detention and torture of former security personnel accused of possessing weapons. In one case in Ghazni, reported in March 2025, a former security force member was allegedly tortured for two nights and forced to identify two former colleagues. The Taliban subsequently detained the two men and reportedly demanded 120,000 afghanis (about $1,850) for each firearm they claimed the men possessed. Rawadari also documented an account from Ghor province in which a former member of the security forces was reportedly released after his family handed over a Kalashnikov rifle.
Rawadari’s 2025 annual report records further cases in Ghazni. On 1 September 2025, the Taliban detained a former soldier in Khwaja Omari district for three nights and told him to hand over the weapons he had held under the former government or pay their value in cash. On 9 and 10 November 2025, two former military officials were arrested in Jaghori and Ab Band districts and ordered to surrender weapons and ammunition belonging to the former government.
Question of Accountability
Five years after the Taliban returned to power, allegations of detention, torture and demands for money under the pretext of weapons possession continue to emerge from different parts of Afghanistan.
The accounts documented in Malistan, Jaghori, Nawur and Daikundi point to a recurring concern: people are being held responsible for weapons they say they no longer possess, or never possessed, and are allegedly pressured to pay money under threat of detention or physical abuse.
In some cases, families say they have already surrendered weapons or paid for them in previous years. Yet demands have reportedly been repeated, with little or no documentation provided to acknowledge the payments.
Muradi’s case captures the personal cost of these allegations. An elderly farmer who says he had already paid the equivalent of a weapon’s value was detained for two weeks, allegedly tortured and forced to pay again.
Rawadari noted in its 2025 annual report that no legal framework currently criminalizes torture in Afghanistan, as the Taliban authorities have suspended the former constitution, the Penal Code and the Anti-Torture Law. Afghanistan nevertheless remains a state party to the UN Convention against Torture, raising concerns about the gap between the country’s international obligations and its domestic legal framework.
Without transparent investigations, accountability for alleged abuses and a reliable process for resolving disputed weapons claims, residents may remain exposed to the same cycle of threats, detention and forced payments.
