Amrullah Saleh’s Brother Rohullah Killed By Taliban In Afghanistan
KABUL: The Taliban have executed the brother of Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan vice president who became one of the leaders of anti-Taliban opposition forces in the Panjshir valley, his nephew said on Friday.. Rohullah Saleh’s nephew, Ebadullah, said the Taliban kept saying “his body should rot”.
The news that Saleh’s brother Rohullah Azizi was killed came days after Taliban forces took control of the provincial centre of Panjshir, the last province holding out against them. “They executed my uncle,” Ebadullah Saleh told Reuters in a text message.
“They killed him yesterday and would not let us bury him. They kept saying his body should rot.” The Urdu language account of the Taliban information service Alemarah said that “according to reports” Rohullah Saleh was killed during fighting in Panjshir.
While some reports said that Ahmad Massoud, leader of the resistance movement against the Taliban in Panjshir, and Amrullah Saleh had fled to Tajikistan after the Taliban takeover, the ousted Afghan government’s ambassador to Tajikistan has refuted the reports, saying they have not fled the country. Ahmad Shah Massoud and former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh have not fled Afghanistan and their resistance forces are still fighting the Taliban, the ambassador to Tajikistan said on Wednesday.
Saleh, a former head of the National Directorate of Security, the intelligence service of the Western-backed government that collapsed last month, is at large though his exact location remains unclear. The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, which groups opposition forces loyal to local leader Ahmad Massoud, has pledged to continue opposing the Taliban even after the fall of Panjshir’s provincial capital Bazarak.
“They killed him yesterday and would not let us bury him. They kept saying his body should rot,” news agency Reuters quoted Ebadullah as saying.The Taliban have claimed full control over the Panjshir valley in Afghanistan, however, the National Resistance Front (NRF) supporters have rejected this claim, saying that the NRF fighters will continue to occupy strategic positions in the province.
Zahir Aghbar, envoy to Dushanbe under the government of ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, told a news conference in Tajikistan’s capital that he was in regular contact with Saleh and that the resistance leaders were out of general communication for security reasons.”Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh have not fled to Tajikistan.
news that Ahmad Massoud has left Panjshir is not true; he is inside Afghanistan,” Aghbar said. “I am in constant contact with Amrullah Saleh, who is currently in Panjshir and running the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s government,” he said. The Taliban swept to power last month and the militant group has said they have captured the Panjshir valley, a last holdout province.
