Watchdog says Afghan Taliban detaining, torturing civilians

Islamabad: Taliban security forces in northern Afghanistan have unlawfully detained and tortured residents accused of association with an opposition armed group, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday.
Since mid-May 2022, fighting has escalated in Panjshir province as National Resistance Front (NRF) forces have attacked Taliban units and checkpoints, HRW said.
The Taliban have responded by deploying to the province thousands of fighters, who have carried out search operations targeting communities they allege are supporting the NRF, the group added.
Also Read Afghanistan: 10 killed in mini-bus accident “Taliban forces have committed summary executions and enforced disappearances of captured fighters and other detainees, which are war crimes, also in other provinces, it said.
In a mountainous valley north of Kabul, the last remnants of Afghanistan’s shattered security forces have vowed to resist the Taliban in a remote region that has defied conquerors before.
Nestled in the towering Hindu Kush, the Panjshir Valley has a single narrow entrance. Local fighters held off the Soviets there in the 1980s, and the Taliban a decade later under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a guerrilla fighter who attained near-mythic status before he was killed in a suicide bombing.