MONSTERS OF WAR
Taliban ‘rape gangs’ draw up ‘hit list’ of girls and widows as they ruthlessly hunt for sex slaves
TALIBAN gangs are targeting children as young as 12 as they hunt for sex slaves after conquering Afghanistan.
Chilling reports have emerged as the fighters stormed across the country and seized Kabul at a speed which has stunned the West.
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The jihadi army have seized the Afghan capital - bringing an end to a rampage which has humiliated US President Joe Biden and much of the West.
Women and girls are believed to be some of the most at risk people under the new Taliban regime - despite their attempts to give off a more modern persona.
They were brutalised and oppressed - with cruel tortures and public executions - when the militant group ruled Afghanistan in the 90s.
And it appears the Taliban are bringing back their vile ways amid reports they are forcing marriages and demanding lists of women and girls.
Taliban warlords reportedly view unmarried - or widowed - women and girls aged 12 to 45 as "qhanimat", spoils of war to be divided amongst their fighters.
Afghans pouring into Kabul as refugees fleeing the march of the militants told stories of how commanders demanded they turn over women and girls to become their "wives" and be raped.
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They also told of how civilians and captured soldiers were murdered by the Taliban, reported the .
Taliban officials have denied the group is enforcing sexual slavery - and claims that such actions are against the rules of Islam.
The disturbing reports come as...
- Taliban stormed Afghanistan’s Presidential Palace after ripping through Kabul
- Afghans were seen falling from departing US planes as they desperately tried to cling on and escape Kabul
- Taliban fighters are going door-to-door with kill lists to track down any Western allies.
- Boris Johnson blamed the US for Afghanistan’s ‘accelerated’ collapse to the Taliban
- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he fled to ‘prevent a flood of bloodshed’
- UK ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow to remain at Kabul airport to help Brits leave
However, such practices were rampant the last time that the Taliban ruled Afghnistan.
And last month it was revealed Taliban officials had published a decree ordered local leaders to turnover lists of young girls and widows under 45.
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Faiz Mohammed Noori and his family fled from their home in Baghlan seeking solace in Kabul.
However before the city's fall, he told : "Kabul is also not safe. If they take over Kabul, they’re taking your daughters, your wife, they don't care."
Taliban recruits are going door-to-door looking for young girls to marry against their will, forcing them into a life of sexual servitude.
Shukria Barakzai
Other reports of the new oppression of women in Afghanistan includes pictures of females of shop front in Kabul being painted over by terrified shop keppers.
And there have been reports of women-centric shops have notices pasted on them by the Taliban warning them not to enter or they would "face the consequences".
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Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan politician and journalist, revealed some of the horrors which she has heard occurring as the Taliban bore down on Kabul.
"The gouging of a woman’s eyes in front of her terrified family; girls as young as 12 wrenched from the arms of their weeping mothers to become sex slaves for Taliban ‘warriors’; men punished or even killed for ‘offences’ as simple as listening to the ‘wrong’ music, or for daring to be ‘educated’," she wrote for .
She added: "In some villages, Taliban recruits are going door-to-door looking for young girls to marry against their will, forcing them into a life of sexual servitude.
"So determined are they that no virgin will escape their clutches that they check drawers, wardrobes and even suitcases in homes where desperate mothers deny they have young daughters to ensure they are telling the truth."
Taliban fighters have already reportedly shot dead a woman wearing "tight clothes" and some areas women have been told they cannot leave home without a male chaperone.
There are unverified reports a woman has been sentenced to be stoned to death in Samangan.
And the Taliban's atrocities against women are well documented.
Militants in 2016 beheaded a woman who went shopping on her own or a woman in 2015 was stoned to death in a shallow grave for having sex with her boyfriend.
Video captured earlier this year showed an unnamed woman screaming as she was whipped by a Taliban fighter accused of talking to a man on the phone.
And in one of the most infamous pictures ever captured of Taliban brutality, a woman named Zarmina, a mum-of-five, was executed in the middle of a football stadium in Kabul in 1999.
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The speed of the Taliban's victory has shaken the world and came just weeks after troops from the US, UK and other Nato countries left Afghanistan.
Twenty years after they were ejected by the US and its allies in the wake of 9/11 they are now back in power.
Taliban forces swept into Kabul as the government fled and have taken control as Western nations desperately tried to airlift out their last staff from embassies.
Horrific videos showed thousands of people swarming towards Kabul airport as they desperately begged for help while Western planes took off - some clinging to landing gear and plunging to their deaths.
Boris Johnson has blamed the US for the advancement of the Taliban in Afghanistan, claiming President Biden "accelerated"; their control.
The Prime Minister said the "difficult" situation had been exacerbated by the President's decision to withdraw troops from the war-torn country.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country - saying he did so to "prevent a flood of bloodshed" and to stop the destruction of Kabul.
Timeline of Taliban victory
THE Taliban surged to victory quicker than anyone expected...
April 14 - President Joe Biden announces US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan starting on May 1 and ending on September 11.
May 4 - Taliban fighters launch a major offensive on Afghan forces in southern Helmand and at least six other provinces.
June 7 - Government officials say fighting is raging in 26 of the country's 34 provinces.
June 22 - Taliban fighters launch a series of attacks in the north of the country, far from their traditional strongholds in the south.
July 2 - American troops quietly pull out of their main military base in Afghanistan - Bagram Air Base, ending US involvement in the war.
July 21 - Taliban insurgents control about a half of the country's districts, according to the senior US general, underlining the scale and speed of their advance.
July 25 - US vows to continue to support Afghan troops "in the coming weeks" with intensified airstrikes to help them counter Taliban attacks.
July 26 - The United Nations says nearly 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in May and June in escalating violence, the highest number for those months since records started in 2009.
August 6 - Zaranj in the south of the country becomes the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in years and many more the ensuing days, including the prized city of Kunduz in the north.
August 13 - Four more provincial capitals fall in a day, including Kandahar, the country's second city and spiritual home of the Taliban. In the west, another key city, Herat, is overrun.
August 14 - The Taliban take the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and, with little resistance, Pul-e-Alam, capital of Logar province just 40 miles south of Kabul.
August 15 - The Taliban take the key eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, effectively surrounding Kabul.
August 16 - The world watches on as the West desperately tries to evacuate its citizens as the Taliban seize power in Afghanistan.
Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, described the Taliban victory "the biggest single foreign policy disaster" since Suez.
His colleague Johnny Mercer, who fought in the country, said it was "humiliating".
In scenes that echoed the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, to safety at a secure area near the airport.
The Taliban appeared to offer an amnesty for government forces and said they want a "peaceful transfer of power".
"No one's life, property and dignity will be harmed and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk," the Taliban said.
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But questions remain about whether the Taliban leadership is able to control troops on the ground and prevent them taking revenge.
When the Taliban last entered Kabul in 1996 after first seizing power, they tortured a former President then dragged him into the streets and hanged him.
Taliban fighters storm Kabul and seize air base and prison after taking over every city in war-torn Afghanistan
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