Taliban soldiers armed with assault rifles ‘tear gas and beat bloody’ women’s rights protesters in Kabul

TALIBAN soldiers allegedly tear gassed and beat bloody a group of women's rights protesters who were marching through Kabul.

Footage shows the chaotic scenes as a group of women can be heard screaming and coughing as Taliban forces cradling guns appear to order them to disperse.

Taliban fighters reportedly fired their weapons into the air, used tear gas and struck members of the protests when they attempted to march on the presidential palace.

Video also shows one protester with bloody face after she was allegedly hit across the head by one of the fighters.

And in another clip a demonstrator can be seen snatching a megaphone from a Taliban official amid the chaotic scenes as the soldiers try to force back the march.

Other footage shows the women coughing and shouting as the armed men move amongst them – attempting to get those with cameras to stop filming the scenes.

Sudaba Kabiri, a 24-year-old university student, said around a dozen Taliban special forces were deployed to disperse the protest on Saturday.

She told AP that tear gas was used on them and the men fired their guns into the air as they broke up the march.

Several of the women are also reported to have been detained by the Taliban over the march – which is the latest protest to hit Kabul.

Tolo News also reported protesters said they were "attacked" by the Taliban with tear gas and a number of them were beaten.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed the organisers had not coordinated the protest with them – but did not comment on the reports of violence.

Many women in Afghanistan fear for the future under the new rule of Taliban after the brutal, oppressive and sexist laws enacted by the group when they ruled the nation in the 90s.

They think this is a man’s country but it is not, it is a woman’s country too

Women already face being whitewashed from public life – with shop fronts featuring female faces being painted over and female newscasters being replaced on TV.

Farhat Popalzai, another 24-year-old university student, said she wanted to be the voice of Afghanistan’s voiceless women – with many too afraid to leave home.

Some protesters are said to have defied their families – including sneaking out of them homes to demand equal rights.

She said: "I am the voice of the women who are unable to speak. They think this is a man’s country but it is not, it is a woman’s country too.”

And protester Maryam Naiby, 20, said: "We are here to gain human rights in Afghanistan. I love my country. I will always be here."

Taliban’s vicious treatment of women

WITH stonings, beheadings and being shot with assault rifles at point blank range, the women of Afghanistan face being left to a horrific fate.

Women were brutally oppressed when then the militant group last controlled Afghanistan in the 90s – and this looks set to return.

Pictures from Kabul already show pictures of women being painted over, and many high profile females have already been withdrawn from public life.

Many women opted to flee the country – and those that remain have spoken of how they have been left in fear for their lives.

During the group's five year rule throughout the 90s women were left housebound, only being able to leave with a male chaperone and while wearing a full burqa.

"The face of a woman is a source of corruption", according to the Taliban.

Women are banned from working, banned from education over the age of 8, restricted from seeing doctors and face the constant threat of flogging or execution for any breaches of "moral" laws.

Already there have been reports of girls as young as 12 being married off to fighters, a woman being shot for wearing "tight clothes", and women being told they cannot leave home without a male chaperone.

Taliban militants in 2016 beheaded a woman for going shopping alone while her husband was away from home in the village of Larri.

Footage from 2012 captured Taliban militants shooting a woman named Najiba, 23, in the back of the head as she sat in a ditch in Qol.

While another horrific video showed another woman named Rokhshana, 19, being stoned in a shallow grave in Ghor in 2015.

Najiba was accused of adultery, while Rokhshana was accused of having sex with her boyfriend outside of marriage.

Video captured earlier this year showed an unnamed woman screaming as she was whipped by a Taliban fighter accused of talking to a man on the phone.

And in one of the most infamous pictures ever captured of Taliban brutality, a woman named Zarmina, a mum-of-five, was executed in the middle of a football stadium in Kabul in 1999.

Zarmina's death was watched by 30,000 spectators as she cowered beneath her veil – showing the terrifying normalisation of violence against women under the Taliban.

And meanwhile, Bibi Aisha had her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban when she tried to flee after being married off at 14.

The Taliban are feared to be poised to resurrect their horrific interpretation of Sharia law – which involves women being murdered for showing too much flesh, demanding basic human rights, having affairs and being rape victims.

Taliban officials have however insisted they want women to play a role in Afghanistan as they attempt to put on a more modern face.

However, many remain unsure of these pledges – with widespread reports of oppression and abuse emerging as they surged back to power over the last few weeks.

The brutes have already reportedly burnt to death a woman they said served below-par cooking to its members.

Taliban squads have been going door to door in Afghanistan kidnapping children as young as 12 to use as child brides and sex slaves since they swept back to power in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Taliban forces reportedly also today painted over murals that promoted health care and warned of the dangers of HIV

Cultural commission spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi tweeted that the murals were painted over “because they are against our values".

"They were spoiling the minds of the mujahedeen and instead we wrote slogans that will be useful to everyone," he said.

British, American and other allied forces defeated the Taliban in 2001 after they allegedly harboured al-Qaeda terrorists who plotted the World Trade Centre attacks on 9/11.

Western nations have spent 20 years trying to rebuild Afghanistan as a new democratic government was installed and brutal laws enacted by the Taliban were ended.

However, the occupation was under constant attack from terrorist forces – and US President Joe Biden had declared his desire to end so-called "forever wars".

Some 20 years of work was undone in a matter of weeks as the Taliban surged back to power – sometimes unopposed – and recaptured Kabul as Western forces boarded evacuation planes.

US President Joe Biden in particular is facing heavy criticism over the botched handling of the withdrawal in what is being described as one of the biggest foreign policy disasters since the Vietnam War.

However, resistance forces holding out in Afghanistan's final free district, the Panjshir Valley, are continuing to fight back against the Taliban.

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