Afghanistan passports, national identity cards will be changed, says Taliban

Agencies | Kabul

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Taliban have announced they will change Afghan passports and national identity cards issued by the previous government and said the documents will be valid for the time being, according to a local media report.

The Khaama Press News Agency reported citing Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban deputy minister of information and culture and the spokesperson, that it is possible that Afghan passports and NIDs to have the name "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" in them. Mujahid also said that the documents issued by the previous government are still valid as legal documents of the country.

According to the news agency, passport and national identity cards departments are still closed in Afghanistan and only those who have conducted their biometrics can get these documents.

The Taliban are already affecting changes in the country, which they swiftly recaptured last month, by replacing women's ministry with the “Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice”, not allowing to return to schools and restoring punishments like amputations and executions to deter criminals.

On Saturday, a local government official in the western Afghan city of Herat said that the Taliban killed four alleged kidnappers and hung their bodies up in public to deter others.

Sher Ahmad Ammar, deputy governor of Herat, said the men kidnapped a local businessman and his son and wanted to take them out of the city when they were seen by patrols that had set up checkpoints around the city. All four men were killed in an exchange of gunfire and one Taliban soldier was wounded. "Their bodies were brought to the main square and hung up in the city as a lesson for other kidnappers," he said.

In an interview with the Associated Press published this week, senior Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi said they would restore punishments like amputations and executions to deter criminals. Several countries, which have condemned the group’s comments on punishments and other actions, have said any potential recognition of the Taliban-led government in Kabul would depend on respect for human rights.