RASC News Agency: In yet another grim reminder of Afghanistan’s deepening insecurity, residents of Bala Murghab district in Badghis province have reported the discovery of a driver’s body, a killing that further erodes the Taliban’s repeated claims of having restored stability across the country. Local sources confirmed on Tuesday, August 19, that the victim, identified as Mohammad, was found dead in the Panirk area a day earlier. Relatives revealed that he had been brutally slain with a sharp weapon. No individual or group has admitted responsibility, and no clear motive has yet emerged. Instead, as in countless other cases, locals say he fell prey to “unidentified gunmen” a chilling phrase that has now become an all-too-familiar refrain in Afghanistan’s daily news cycle.
The murder in Badghis follows closely on the heels of another disturbing incident in Paktika, where a man who had been abducted was later found dead. These repeated tragedies expose the hollowness of Taliban assurances. While the group boasts of “nationwide security,” the reality faced by ordinary Afghanistanis is a surge in abductions, robberies, and unsolved killings. For every act of violence, the Taliban offer the same empty explanation: they attribute the crimes to vague and faceless “unknown armed men.” Yet among citizens, suspicion is growing that the perpetrators may not be outsiders at all. Many now believe that Taliban fighters themselves or at least armed factions loyal to them are complicit in these crimes. Such fears are fueled not only by the Taliban’s bloody history of repression but also by their refusal to conduct transparent or impartial investigations.
The phrase “unidentified gunmen” has become a convenient shield for the Taliban, a linguistic disguise that masks failure and deflects accountability. In a country where the group exerts suffocating control over politics, media, and public life, the people cannot help but ask: how can so many murders and abductions occur with such frequency, without the Taliban discovering even the faintest trace of the culprits? The body of Mohammad in Badghis and the abducted man in Paktika are not isolated cases. They are emblematic of a darker reality an unspoken epidemic of killings that silently corrode Afghanistani society. These are not just deaths by bullet or blade; they are deaths by fear, by mistrust, and by the slow unraveling of a nation where the Taliban’s iron grip has proven incapable of providing even the most basic guarantee of life: security.
