A report from National Review says that the Taliban are searching the phones of Afghans for anything in the English language.
The Afghan people are now in fear of even speaking English, as they presume the Taliban will execute anyone who they believe to be working with US forces.
At the beginning of this crisis, the Taliban set up checkpoints in order to hault anyone with US passports or credentials from leaving.
The failure of Joe Biden to fully prepare for the sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan has left American citizens, as well as Afghan allies in serious jeapordy of losing their lives.
National Review broke the story, and has more on the situation in Kabul:
My reader who is trying to get his company’s former Afghan employees out of the country – including one that is a U.S. green card holder – has no good news in his latest update. (See here, here, here, here and here for background on this reader.)
“My green card guy is still hiding,” my reader laments. “[The U.S. embassy in Kabul] has not bothered to send him a single message. I have confirmed his evacuation request has all the correct contact information.”
One of the Afghans has told my reader that he can no longer speak to him on the phone or text him in English, because the Taliban are taking people’s phones and searching through them for English language messages. Afghans are now afraid to speak English, because the Taliban presumes that anyone overheard speaking or writing in English worked with the Americans or the coalition.
My reader says the State Department told him that the best option is to keep communicating with the Kabul Embassy through an e-mail. He has done so repeatedly, and he keeps getting the same automatic generic reply, “with gobs of links about where to go for help for this or that. It is a worthless email in an evacuation scenario.”
Just a few weeks ago, it was reported by Business Insider that the Taliban had set up checkpoints in Kabul, in order to check Afghans' phones for evidence that they were in communication with Western governments or organizations:
The Taliban have strengthened their grip on Afghanistan's capital city by setting up checkpoints around Kabul, where residents' smartphones are being searched for any signs of communications in English, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday.
Taliban forces have also searched Afghans' phones for any sign of illicit material, the report added.
Meanwhile, Taliban fighters are searching the offices and homes of Afghans who have affiliations with Western governments or organizations, The Journal said. Many Afghans are racing to erase past online lives, scrubbing their phones for evidence of a more secular lifestyle over the past 20 years, Wired reported.
The Taliban have also set up checkpoints at entrances to Kabul's airport, where they have whipped and beat Afghans trying cross to make an escape, The Journal reported.
Many American citizens and Afghan allies were unable to escape due to the Taliban checkpoints throughout Kabul.
The violence at these checkpoints has been well documented.
With the Taliban already armed with abandoned US military equipment, our Afghan allies are left to the mercy of terrorists.
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