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Afghanistan’s First Female Mayor: Taliban Coming ‘For People Like Me,’ Will ‘Kill Me’

   DailyWire.com
TOPSHOT - A Taliban fighter mans a machinegun on top of a vehicle as they patrol along a street in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar / AFP) (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

Afghanistan’s first female mayor says she is now waiting for the Taliban to come and kill her after the terror group ousted the government and effectively seized power over the country on Sunday.

Zarifa Ghafari, 27, became the youngest and first female mayor in Afghanistan in 2018. She has received numerous death threats from the Taliban and faced multiple attempted assassinations. Her father, Afghan General Abdul Wasi Ghafari, was killed last year. Zarifa held a defense ministry post in Kabul, moved there over fear for her safety, until the Taliban overran the city over the weekend, according to iNews.

“I’m sitting here waiting for them to come. There is no one to help me or my family. I’m just sitting with them and my husband. And they will come for people like me and kill me. I can’t leave my family. And anyway, where would I go?” she told iNews.

Less than a month ago Ghafari has seemed optimistic about her country’s future, telling iNews at the time: “Younger people are aware of what’s happening. They have social media. They communicate. I think they will continue fighting for progress and our rights. I think there is a future for this country.”

Many of Afghanistan’s top government officials have already fled the country. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani quietly fled the country on Sunday as Taliban militants entered Kabul.

Refugees who fled to Kabul before its fall said that Taliban militants had already begun cracking down on Afghans in outlying cities and towns, forcing unmarried women to wed Taliban fighters and executing Afghan soldiers. Members of the Taliban have reportedly already started “door to door” searches of Kabul looking for any former officials of the Afghan government, soldiers, journalists, and others. As The Daily Wire reported:

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.”

Related: CNN Correspondent Dons Burqa On-Air Following Taliban Takeover

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