The Taliban have speeded up killing people who are somehow linked to the Afghan government and foreign organizations. Such people include laborers who work for various developmental projects across the country. Their work is only for winning bread for their families and contributing to reconstruction of their country. But the Taliban have no mercy even for them and have stepped up targeting them in the recent months.
Teachers and officials working with the Ministry of Education are also being growingly killed by insurgents. Meanwhile, incidents where the Taliban behead translators and other Afghans working with US-led NATO projects are also on increase.
In the latest episode, the insurgents have butchered six workers of the National Solidarity Program (NSP) in Herat province. The men were shot in the head late on Monday, despite efforts by the Herat governor, Fazlullah Wahidi, to convince the Taliban the men did not work for him. "We had gathered some elders to meet the Taliban to tell them that they … worked for everyone in the country, but the Taliban killed them before they arrived for negotiations," Wahidi told Reuters.
Two weeks before, the insurgents had killed 10 people working for the same program in Herat province. During the same time, eight people who worked for Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) were killed in Ghazni on their way to Kabul by bus. They had been tricked into identifying themselves at an improvised checkpoint by Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan soldiers, who told them there was a Taliban checkpoint ahead and to get off the bus to avoid being killed.
Killing of laborers working for government projects now happen more frequently than ever before, although their work is for the welfare of the people of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the civilian causalities have also gone high. Based on the biannual report of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released last month, civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose by 23 percent during the first six months of the current year. UNAMA documented 1,319 civilian deaths, compared with 1,158 a year earlier.
Such killings indicate that the growing weakness of the government in protecting the life of the people especially those working for it. Such is the situation in the presence of tens of thousands of international troops. With the withdrawal of these troops by the end of the next year, the situation will definitely deteriorate. Therefore, the concern about their future is growing rapidly among common Afghans.