Three killed as Afghan protests test Taliban's promise of peaceful rule

The new government may take the form of a ruling council, with Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in overall charge, a senior member of the group said.

But Afghanistan would not be a democracy, Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters: "It is sharia law and that is it."

After seizing power at the weekend, the Taliban promised peaceful rule. They said they would not take revenge against old enemies and would respect the rights of women https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/times-have-changed-some-afghan-women-defiant-taliban-return-2021-08-17 within the framework of Islamic law.

A protest in Jalalabad, 150 km (90 miles) from Kabul on the main road to Pakistan, was an early test of that commitment.

Two witnesses and a former police official told Reuters that Taliban fighters had opened fire when local residents tried to install Afghanistan's national flag at a square in the city, killing three people and injuring more than a dozen.

Taliban spokesmen were not immediately reachable for comment.

Thousands of Afghans, many of whom helped U.S.-led foreign forces in the two decades since an invasion ended the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule, are desperate to leave the country.

Taliban commanders and soldiers fired into the air to disperse crowds outside Kabul airport, a Taliban official said. "We have no intention to injure anyone," he told Reuters.

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, who left the country as Taliban fighters seized control, is in the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf state said.

About 5,000 diplomats, security staff, aid workers and Afghans have been evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hours and military flights will continue around the clock, a Western official told Reuters. "It's absolutely hectic and chaos out there," the official said.

(For a graphic on the airport chaos, click on: https://tmsnrt.rs/3stVpcj)

The United Nations said it had begun moving up to 100 international staff to Kazakhstan but said the measure was temporary and stressed it is "committed to staying and delivering in support of the Afghan people in their hour of need". The UN has about 300 international staff and 3,000 local staff in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have suggested they will impose their laws more softly than during their former harsh rule, and a senior official said on Wednesday that the group's leaders would be less reclusive than in the past.

"Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders," the senior Taliban official told Reuters.

Hashimi, who has access to the group's decision-making, said the role of women, including their right to work and education and how they should dress, would ultimately be decided by a council of Islamic scholars.

"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 told Reuters.

Under previous Taliban rule, also guided by sharia religious law, women were prevented from working, girls were not allowed to go to school and women had to wear all-enveloping burqas to go out.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on Wednesday: "We'll see what they do, whether it will be according to the pronouncements that they made."

Echoing that comment and those of other Western leaders, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Taliban would be judged "by its actions rather than by its words".

Many Afghans are sceptical of the Taliban promises. Some said they could only wait and see.

"My family lived under the Taliban and maybe they really want to change or have changed but only time will tell and it's going to become clear very soon," said Ferishta Karimi, who runs a tailoring shop for women.

The Taliban seized Kabul on Sunday as Western forces withdrew under a deal that included a Taliban promise not to attack them as they leave.

U.S. President Joe Biden has faced a barrage of criticism about the withdrawal, including from British lawmakers on Wednesday who called Afghanistan's collapse into Taliban hands a failure of intelligence, leadership and moral duty.

Biden has said he had to decide between asking U.S. forces to fight endlessly or follow through on the withdrawal deal of his predecessor Donald Trump.

U.S. forces running the airport initially had to stop evacuation flights after thousands of frightened Afghans https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghans-evacuated-germany-describe-terrifying-scenes-kabul-airport-2021-08-18 swamped the airfield.

Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan said his team had evacuated about 700 people on Tuesday while Germany's foreign minister said it had evacuated 500 people in total.

Asked whether Britain hoped to take 1,000 people out of Afghanistan a day, Johnson's spokesman said they were aiming to operate at that capacity.

France said it had moved out 25 of its nationals and 184 Afghans, and Australia said 26 people had arrived on its first flight back from Kabul. Denmark said it had evacuated 84 people on a military plane.