KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Taliban intelligence agents have detained a former military officer in Afghanistan’s northeastern Panjshir province, local sources said.
The former officer, identified as Sayed Padshah, was arrested in Panjshir’s Abshar district on Tuesday, March 4, and transferred to Kabul. His family remains in the dark about his whereabouts, the sources added.
Padshah, a former member of the Afghan Public Protection Force under the previous government, had been living a civilian life without connections to anti-Taliban armed groups since the fall of the government, according to the sources.
The reason for Padshah’s detention remains unclear, and Taliban authorities have yet to comment on the matter.
This arrest is part of a broader pattern of targeted detentions, torture, and killings of former soldiers and officials of the previous Afghan government, particularly those from Panjshir province, by the Taliban.
In his latest quarterly report on Afghanistan, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that the Taliban’s crackdown on former government officials and military personnel has intensified, with the UN documenting 18 assassinations and 37 arbitrary arrests over a three-month period.
The Taliban has often accused former Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) members—especially those from Panjshir—of possessing weapons or collaborating with resistance groups such as the National Resistance Front (NRF) and the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF).
The UN and human rights groups have repeatedly condemned the Taliban’s alleged revenge killings and other human rights violations, urging the regime to uphold the rights and freedoms of all Afghan citizens, including former ANDSF members.
