FLIGHT FROM HELL
The Voice star Aryana Sayeed flees woman-hating Taliban death squads after ‘world of disbelief and shock’ in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN'S biggest female pop star fled Kabul on a US Air Force plane over growing fears of the woman-hating Taliban death squads.
Aryana Sayeed, 36, who lives in Turkey, reassured her Instagram followers of her safety after escaping the country on Wednesday.
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";I am well and alive and after a couple of unforgettable nights, I have reached Doha, Qatar and am awaiting my eventual flight back home to Istanbul," the singer told her 1.3 million Instagram followers.
Ms Sayeed, a singer and judge on the Afghan version of The Voice, later posted an update showing that she had flown to Turkey's capital, Istanbul.
"After I get home and my mind and emotions return back to normal from a world of disbelief and shock, I have many stories to share with you," she said.
Other images of the pop star show her at Kabul airport along with her producer and husband Hasib Sayed.
They can then also be seen aboard the US Air Force military plane, wearing face masks as they head to Doha in Qatar.
Ms Sayeed first left her Afghan homeland when she was just eight years old, with her family finally settling in Switzerland and then in London in the year 2000.
It was getting really difficult, I couldn't go anywhere.
Aryana Sayeed
After her rise to stardom, Ms Sayeed regularly visited Afghanistan where her life was at risk.
Appearing on The Voice in fashionable figure-hugging clothing and without a headscarf, Ms Sayeed said that Mullahs, or mosque leaders, have threatened her life.
Speaking to in 2014 she said: "They said that whoever kills this singer would go to heaven.
"It was getting really difficult, I couldn't go anywhere.
"I was basically a prisoner in my hotel room, I had bodyguards with me all the time."
Ms Sayeed has also been a vocal supporter of women's rights, rights which are in jeopardy now that the Taliban have taken control of the country.
On Wednesday, the Taliban said the decision on whether women can study and work would be left to a council of Islamic scholars.
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"Our scholars will decide whether girls are allowed to go to school or not," Waheedullah Hashimi, a senior Taliban leader said.
Hashimi also said that the council of scholars, or ulema, would decide what women would be forced to wear.
"They will decide whether they should wear hijab, burqa, or only a veil plus abaya or something, or not. That is up to them," he added.
Interpretation of Islamic law varies throughout Islamic nations but the laws applied previously under the Taliban regime were one of the strictest implemented.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the West would judge the new Taliban by its actions including how it treats women.
There will be no place for women.
Afghan governor Salima Mazari
"We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes, and by its actions rather than by its words, on its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access, and the rights of girls to receive an education," he said.
In Afghanistan Salima Mazari, one of the few female district governors in the country, expressed fears about a Taliban takeover Saturday in an interview from Mazar-e-Sharif, before it fell.
"There will be no place for women," said Mazari, who governs a district of 36,000 people near the northern city.
"In the provinces controlled by the Taliban, no women exist there anymore, not even in the cities. They are all imprisoned in their homes."
In heartbreaking scenes from Kabul airport yesterday, mothers were filmed throwing their babies over razor wire as they begged British paratroopers to take them to safety.
The entrance to the Baron hotel, near Kabul airport, has become the focal point for Afghans seeking refuge in the UK.
One officer told the Independent: "The mothers were desperate, they were getting beaten by the Taliban.
"They shouted, ‘save my baby’ and threw the babies at us.
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"Some of the babies fell on the barbed wire. It was awful what happened.
"By the end of the night there wasn’t one man among us who was not crying."
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Desperate Afghan mums 'throw babies over barbed wire' begging soldiers to take them
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