Taliban making ‘door-to-door visits’ in Afghanistan: UN document | Al Jazeera

The Taliban is going house-to-house searching for opponents and their families, according to a United Nations threat assessment report, deepening fears that Afghanistan‘s new rulers are planning revenge.

After routing government forces and taking over Kabul on Sunday to end 20 years of war, the group had repeatedly promised a complete amnesty as part of a well-crafted PR blitz.

Women have also been assured their rights will be respected, and that the Taliban will be “positively different” from their brutal 1996-2001 rule.

But with thousands of people still trying to flee the capital on board evacuation flights, the intelligence report for the UN confirmed the fears of many.

The Taliban has been conducting “targeted door-to-door visits” of people who worked with US and NATO forces, according to the confidential document by the UN’s threat assessment consultants seen by the AFP news agency.

The report, written by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, said the group’s fighters were also screening people on the way to Kabul airport.

“They are targeting the families of those who refuse to give themselves up, and prosecuting and punishing their families ‘according to Sharia law’,” Christian Nellemann, the group’s executive director, told AFP.

“We expect both individuals previously working with NATO and US forces and their allies, alongside with their family members to be exposed to torture and executions.”