‘Counting Their Final Hours’: Taliban Conducting ‘Door To Door’ Searches For U.S. Allies, Journalists, Reports Say

 Taliban militants are reportedly conducting door-to-door searches in Kabul looking for Afghan government officials, military members, and others who worked with the United States and other western countries.

Taliban militants are also seeking out journalists. While the terrorist group has promised safety and publicly called for a “peaceful” transfer of power, refugees who flocked to Kabul prior to its fall said that the Taliban has already begun forced marriages and executions in outlying cities and towns.

“Taliban started door to door search looking for govt officials, former police & security forces members & those who worked for foreign countries NGOs or infrastructures in Afghanistan. At least 3 journalists’ houses were searched in the last hour. Kabul is now becoming deadly,” one Kabul-based journalist tweeted on Monday. “This is a game-changer for us all. Many have started counting their final hours of life in Kabul. Nobody knows what happens next. Pray for us.”

“Taliban fighters going door-to-door in #Kabul, looking for government employees, soldiers and police, and Afghans who worked with foreign govts and NGOs, several residents tell me,” another journalist tweeted. “Some have been taken away, family members say. In other cases, houses have been searched and documents/weapons confiscated. Taliban also recording names/addresses.”

The United States is working to evacuate American citizens as well as thousands of Afghan visa holders. The Department of Defense is preparing to house up to 30,000 Afghan refugees at military bases. Some U.S. citizens are reportedly trapped behind Taliban security checkpoints and are unable to reach Karzai. 

Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AK) office told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman that his office is receiving calls from United States citizens trapped behind Taliban checkpoints, even as the U.S. State Department is demanding the Taliban allow foreign nationals to leave the country.

Cotton’s office opened its phone lines to citizens in Kabul who need help, according to a tweet the Senator sent out earlier Sunday, asking anyone in need to make contact. Haberman tweeted Sunday night that Cotton’s office received calls from “multiple U.S. citizens” requiring help.

Prior to the Taliban takeover of Kabul on Sunday, reports from refugees of other areas in Afghanistan gave a brutal look at how the terrorist group is cracking down on Afghans. According to The Wall Street Journal:

But Afghans pouring into Kabul and those still in Taliban-held areas say they have witnessed unprovoked attacks on civilians and executions of captured soldiers. In addition, they say, Taliban commanders have demanded that communities turn over unmarried women to become “wives” for their fighters—a form of sexual violence, human-rights groups say.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said Thursday that it had received reports of the Taliban executing members of the Afghan military who had surrendered. “Deeply disturbing & could constitute war crimes,” the embassy said on Twitter.