Taliban use fingerprints, gun records to hunt down Afghans who assisted US before 2021 takeover, says new report

Kabul: Taliban is using fingerprints and gun records to track down people in Afghanistan who helped and worked with the US government. The findings are based on a new inspector general report that contains details on the chaos that ensued after American troops withdrew from the country in 2021. In the 148-page report, an ex-Afghan military intelligence officer said that the members of Taliban are going after former Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) “on a daily basis”. ANDSF had received funding worth tens of billions of dollars for training and equipment for over two decades. The US withdrawal resulted in the complete collapse of the force. The officer said, “They search their homes and if they cannot find the individual they will go after their family members.” “They punish their family until the person they are looking for surrenders. They will arrest someone at their home and beat them all the way to the police station," the officer added according to Fox News. But why is the extremist group going after Afghans nearly two years after the US withdrawal? According to the report, Taliban is apprehensive that these people might get together and go against them or have connections with the opposition fighting the Taliban. Biometric devices used to hunt people As per the report, Taliban is using biometric devices to track down former helpers of US government. “The Taliban are using biometric devices to detect and find former ANDSF. They take fingerprints and if there is a match, they take the individual to the police station,” the officer revealed. Reportedly, a number of National Directorate of Security, Afghan National Army, and Afghan National Police officers have been arrested with the help of data acquired from biometric devices. “Some are still in prison right now. Their families have no food or money. If the Taliban continue with this [these families] won’t last, they will collapse,” a former intelligence officer said. The report said, “a number of Afghan-owned and operated biometric databases, including the Afghan Automatic Biometric Identification System and e-tazkira, the country’s electronic national ID card system.” Taliban looking for guns The former director of the criminal investigative division of the Afghan National Police, General Besmullah Taban described an incident in the report where his mother was approached by Taliban officers looking for his gun. “They are looking for everything now, because there were systems showing which pistol or whatever belongs to whom,” said Taban. Door-to-door searches A threat assessment by United Nations warned in 2021 that the Taliban were going door-to-door in search of people who worked with US and NATO. The confidential report said that the group had a “priority list” of individuals it wanted to arrest and threatened to kill. Taliban seized biometric data In the wake of Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, multiple reports indicated that the group had gained access to biometric data that was collected by US. Many Afghans, who once supported US, went into hiding following the takeover and subsequently destroyed any physical or digital evidence of their identities. These Afghans, however, feared that Taliban could easily find them using the seized biometric data. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .