RASC News Agency: Fresh reports emerging from the capital of Afghanistan reveal a disturbing new wave of Taliban coercion targeting residents of District 11 in Kabul, particularly in the vicinity of Ustad Khalilullah Khalili High School in the Hissa-e-Awal area of Khair Khana. According to local sources, Taliban authorities have been issuing stark ultimatums to homeowners, threatening to demolish properties if rent is not paid to the so-called “Islamic Emirate.” Eyewitnesses and affected residents told RASC that the Taliban have declared long-held private properties as “state-owned land,” demanding that homeowners many of whom possess legally registered deeds spanning decades begin paying rent to the regime. Failure to comply, they were warned, will result in the forced destruction of their homes.
“Our family has lived here for nearly fifty years. We have both municipal and Islamic legal ownership documents,” one resident explained. “Now the Taliban claim this is state property and are threatening us with eviction unless we pay them rent. It’s nothing short of extortion.” The Taliban’s rationale, that the land surrounding Ustad Khalili High School belongs to the state and is being occupied illegally, has been widely rejected by residents who say they acquired their land through lawful means, long before the Taliban returned to power. Many believe that this is not an isolated legal dispute but part of a larger, more insidious plan driven by ethnic manipulation and political control.
Khair Khana’s Hissa-e-Awal is known for its predominantly Tajik population, with a significant portion of its residents hailing from the strategically important Panjshir Valley. Community leaders assert that the Taliban are deliberately targeting non-Pashtun neighborhoods to facilitate the resettlement of Pashtun families from the country’s southern and eastern provinces effectively redrawing the ethnic map of Kabul through forced displacement. “This is ethnic engineering under the cloak of administration,” said one local elder. “The Taliban are using their unchecked power to remove us and replace us with families aligned to their ethnic base. It’s quiet, methodical ethnic cleansing.”
Investigations by RASC correspondents corroborate these concerns. Over the past four years, property purchases in the area have surged particularly by individuals linked to provinces such as Kandahar, Helmand, and Paktia, which are Taliban strongholds. The sudden increase in Pashtun land acquisitions in historically Tajik areas has raised alarms over what many now describe as a state-backed effort to erode Kabul’s demographic diversity and secure long-term Taliban dominance. Human rights organizations have expressed mounting concern over these developments. One civil society advocate, speaking anonymously due to threats, said:
“The Taliban’s policies violate not only the basic tenets of Afghanistani law but also the principles of Islamic justice. These actions are a direct threat to social cohesion, property rights, and national unity.”
The activist warned that the Taliban’s silence on these forced displacement campaigns signals tacit approval from the regime’s highest ranks. “If the world continues to look the other way, this will not stop in Kabul it will expand to other provinces, with irreversible consequences for ethnic minorities across Afghanistan.” In response, residents of District 11 are appealing to the international community, the United Nations, and global human rights watchdogs to urgently intervene. Their calls underscore a desperate plea to halt what they describe as an unlawful campaign of ethnic repression disguised as bureaucratic enforcement. “These threats are not isolated incidents,” one resident added. “This is part of a broader pattern of persecution. If allowed to continue, it will lead to a humanitarian crisis mass displacement, homelessness, and the ethnic reshaping of Afghanistan’s capital.”
While the Taliban claim to have restored law and order, the reality on the ground tells a far more ominous story. Behind the regime’s hollow declarations of justice lies a grim reality one dominated by intimidation, exploitation, and the systematic dismantling of multiethnic urban communities.
