The local police chief, who was installed by the Taliban, later said that the quartet died in a shootout with the Taliban while freeing the abducted man and his son. According to him, the kidnappers wounded one Taliban member and a civilian during the fight. The kidnapped man was said to have been released.
Nouruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the movement and a major supporter of a strict interpretation of Islamic law, told the AP that the group intended to carry out executions and cut hands again. According to him, however, this may not happen in public as in the past.
Conservatives with phones
Since the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August, many Afghans and the world have been anxiously watching whether the Taliban will restore the tough government of the second half of the 1990s, when Afghanistan first ruled Afghanistan. The leaders of the radical group remain rooted in a deeply conservative and harsh worldview, although they are embracing technological changes such as mobile phones, the AP noted.
Taliban officials have previously said they will not repeat the fundamentalist policies of their movement’s previous government.
An unnamed Taliban official meanwhile announced that a bomb blast near a road in Nangarhar province hit a Taliban car and injured at least one person. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the explosion. A similar offshoot in Jalalabad last week, in which 12 people died, was reported by a local branch of the Islamic State terrorist organization, the AP said.
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