Parwan, Kandahar witness mass evacuation as Taliban raids houses

KABUL: Taliban has begun carrying out door-to-door nighttime raids in the central and southern provinces of Kandahar and Parwan in Afghanistan under the pretext of tracking down illegal arms, triggering fear among locals, leading to mass evacuations.

As door-to-door searches by the Taliban have become regular in Afghanistan, residents of Kolami village in the Salang district of Parwan are considering a mass evacuation because they are petrified by the Taliban's nighttime searches, according to Khaama Press.

Since US troops returned on August 15 last year and the Taliban took control, house-to-house searches have been conducted by Islamic Emirate forces in various parts of the nation.

Speaking on the raids conducted by the Taliban officials, the Kandahar chief of police said, "The Taliban are not operating alone in their activities; they are joined by neighbourhood elders and religious scholars," reported Khaama Press.

However, the Taliban officials have claimed that the purpose of these searches is to track down illegal or state-owned firearms. Earlier in August, the Taliban security forces also conducted house-to-house raids in the city and some districts of the province.

Since the previous government fell, house-to-house searches have been conducted by the Taliban time and again in various parts of the nation. In August 2021, the US left much of the military equipment and weapons at the disposal of the Afghan forces which eventually fell into the hands of the Taliban.

After capturing Kabul, the Taliban not only took political control of Afghanistan but also gained control of all the US-made weapons and military equipment that were left behind by the fleeing Afghan forces. The US-made arms and military accessories are openly traded in shops by Afghan gun dealers.

The traffickers are collecting the weapons from the abandoned Afghan army bases, and procuring them from the Afghan government soldiers and Taliban fighters. These weapons are then mostly sold in weapons markets or arms bazaars in tribal areas of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan is the prime source of opium supply to the world drug markets and Pakistan is the transport hub with drug networks operating from the country using its drug routes to reach international markets.

The Taliban is under UN sanctions over terrorist activities and has established an interim government in Afghanistan led by Mohammad Hasan Akhund, a prominent member of the first Taliban cabinet.

The country has since been facing a humanitarian crisis with economic distress and food shortages.