KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Taliban intelligence agents have detained a young man named Gheyasuddin in Panjshir, accusing him of collaborating with armed anti-Taliban groups, local sources said.
The source informed KabulNow today that the young man was detained in the Hesa Awal district of Panjshir on Friday, December 27.
The Taliban accused Gheyasuddin of collaborating with the National Resistance Front (NRF), an armed opposition group. However, the source dismissed the claim, asserting that he had no ties to armed groups and had never been involved in armed activities.
The sources added that the young man had fled to neighboring Iran after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 but was recently deported from the country.
The Taliban authorities have not yet commented on the matter. However, the regime’s violent crackdown on residents of Panjshir province has continued and intensified in recent months.
Panjshir, a small province north of Kabul, has been the main stronghold for two armed anti-Taliban groups, the National Resistance Front (NRF) and the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF). As a result, it has faced some of the harshest collective punishment from the Taliban over the past three years.
Since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have detained, tortured, and in some cases killed dozens of Panjshir residents, often accusing them of collaborating with armed groups or possessing weapons.
Rights groups, activists, and groups opposing the Taliban say that the regime’s suppressive behavior toward residents of Panjshir province amounts to “war crimes”.
In a report last year, the international rights group Amnesty International said that the Taliban committed the war crime of collective punishment against residents of Panjshir in recent years.
“While many of the acts taken by Taliban forces individually constitute war crimes, the entirety of those acts – plus the additional arbitrary detentions and restrictions on the civilian population – also constitute the war crime of collective punishment,” the rights group said.
