Taliban have beheaded two children in Kandahar, officials in the province said on Monday, 10 June. The boys who were 10 and 16 years old respectively had collected food waste from a trash bin in the area of a security checkpoint and the Taliban insurgents doubted them for spying for Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

This act of Taliban, like their other acts of insurgency, is anti-Islamic, anti-human and anti-Afghanistan. The incident indicates that the Taliban are cowards up to an extent that they are afraid of small children. Taliban have been involved in brutally killing Afghan men, women and children. They train minors for launching suicide attacks. To them, this is a legitimate act and necessary for serving Islam albeit the religion strongly prohibits committing suicide in any form and shape.

Taliban have warned that they would slaughter anyone who is found assisting the ANSF and US-led international forces in Afghanistan. The warning also applies to government official and employees of NGOs. Those directly working for supporting foreign operation inside Afghanistan are said at the frontline of danger. If Taliban can slaughter children by accusing them of spying for ANSF, they would not spare people who have aided foreign country’s operations in Afghanistan in one or other forms.

Over the last eleven years, scores of interpreters and individuals working for Western countries have been targeted. The Taliban have been openly threatening to kill those Afghans who been assisting the US and its allies. Targeting such individuals is easy for insurgents as there is no specific arrangement to secure their lives. In insecure provinces of Afghanistan like Kandahar, Helmand, Urozgan, Zabul, Ghazni and so on, Afghans working with NATO forces or US non-military projects are threatened by throwing letters in their homes and calling on their cell phones.

After the withdrawal of US-led forces, the first target of the insurgents will be Afghans who have assisted the NATO mission in Afghanistan. For Taliban infidels are eligible for being killed and those who assist them fall in the same category.

Beheading of children by Taliban is an indicator of the fact that they would do the same to anyone who is somehow linked to ANSF and NATO whenever and wherever they find a chance. The international community must have a plan to safeguard the life of the Afghans who have worked for them.