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Taliban unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazara people, Amnesty says

Source: BBC

The Taliban murdered 13 ethnic Hazara people including a teenage girl, according to a prominent rights group.

Amnesty International said it found evidence the victims were massacred in Daykundi province in August.

Nine were former government soldiers who had surrendered to the Taliban, Amnesty said, adding that the killings appeared to be a war crime.

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Hundreds throng passport office in Afghan capital

Source: Reuters

KABUL, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Afghans flocked to the passport office in Kabul on Wednesday, just a day after news that it would re-open this week to issue the documents, while Taliban security men had to beat back some in the crowd in efforts to maintain order.

Taliban officials have said the service will resume from Saturday, after being suspended since their takeover and the fall of the previous government in August, which stranded many of those desperate to flee the country.

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Afghanistan to start issuing passports again after months of delays

Source: Reuters

KABUL, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Afghanistan will start issuing passports to its citizens again on Tuesday, a senior official said, following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control in August.

The process, which had slowed even before the Islamist militants’ return to power following the withdrawal of U.S. forces, will provide applicants with documents physically identical to those issued by the previous government, the official said.

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Inside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste

Source: The Guardian

The cars, minibuses and armoured vehicles that the CIA used to run its shadow war in Afghanistan had been lined up and incinerated beyond identification before the Americans left. Below their ashy grey remains, pools of molten metal had solidified into permanent shiny puddles as the blaze cooled.

The faux Afghan village where they trained paramilitary forces linked to some of the worst human rights abuses of the war had been brought down on itself. Only a high concrete wall still loomed over the crumpled piles of mud and beams, once used to practise for the widely hated night raids on civilian homes.

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The U.S. Military Needs to Learn How to Train Auxiliary Armies

Source: Foreignpolicy.com

America’s war in Afghanistan is now over, but the war over the war has only just begun. The sudden collapse of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police looms large in these new debates among policy wonks, politicians, and journalists.

Images of captured U.S. equipment in the hands of the triumphant Taliban brought bitter reminders of Islamic State soldiers celebrating in American armored vehicles after Iraqi security forces suddenly collapsed in 2014. How could these security forces, which the United States had spent so much time and resources training and equipping, collapse so quickly?

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Qatar flight with more than 230 evacuees leaves Kabul, official says

Source: Reuters

DUBAI, Oct 3 (Reuters) – A fifth chartered flight carrying civilians from Afghanistan to Qatar since U.S. forces withdrew in August left Kabul on Sunday with 235 passengers, most of them Afghan citizens, a senior Qatari government official said.

Citizens from several other states were also on the flight, the official said, without identifying them. The passengers will be housed in a compound in Qatar that is hosting evacuees from Afghanistan until departing to their final destinations.

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Several people killed by bomb attack near a Kabul mosque

Source: BBC

Several people have been killed by a bombing at a mosque in the Afghan capital Kabul, the Taliban have said.

Twenty were also injured by the blast near Eid Gah mosque, where a prayer ceremony was being held for the late mother of a Taliban spokesman.

It is the first major explosion in Kabul since Western forces withdrew in August.

Three people have been arrested however so far no group has said it was behind the attack.

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