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Anti-Pak protests in Kabul, Taliban fire at crowds to disperse

Hundreds of Kabul residents took to the streets today to protest what they said was Pakistan’s meddling in Afghan affairs, three weeks after the Taliban took control. On social media, local journalists shared videos showing the crowds shouting slogans such as ‘death to Pakistan’, ‘we don’t want the Pakistani puppet government’ and ‘Pakistan, leave Afghanistan’. AFP reports that Taliban members fired into the air to disperse crowds at the protest.

In Pakistan, the country’s spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which is known for supporting terror groups against India, is preparing the groundwork for a new government there after 20 years of conflict with a US-led alliance. ‘Stay away, ISI,’ read a placard held by a protestor outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul. As she hears gunshots, a woman on the street in the video posted on Twitter by the Asvaka news agency cries out, ‘the Islamic government is shooting at our poor people. Those people (Taliban) are not human at all, and they are very unjust’.

According to reports, some journalists covering the protests have been arrested. Lotfullah Najafizada, TOLOnews’ chief, says his colleague Waheed Ahmady was arrested by the Taliban in Kabul for filming a protest. Najafizada tweeted, ‘I call on the Taliban to release our colleague’. ISI chief Faiz Hameed was in Kabul over the weekend, reportedly to be briefed by his country’s ambassador. But he most likely met with Taliban officials too.

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Taliban leaders have not yet announced a government, but the name of Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, who is on the UN terror watch list, is circulating as a candidate for Prime Minister of Afghanistan. The war-torn nation has been unable to form a government due to disagreements between the terrorist group’s multiple factions. In addition to Mullah Baradar’s Doha faction of the Taliban, the Haqqani Network–a semi-independent terror group that operates in eastern Afghanistan–and the Kandahar faction of the Taliban compete for power in Afghanistan. In Kabul, Pakistan’s military intelligence chief is thought to have reached a consensus that Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund will become the next prime minister.

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