Taliban's Rule in Seized City Was Short, Brutal

The Taliban was only in full control of Kunduz for a couple of days, but that was more than long enough to remind the world that it can still rival ISIS for brutality. Residents tell the New York Times that within hours of their victory, the militants promised that Taliban rule in the first major Afghan city the group had controlled since 2001 would be tolerant and there would be no looting or summary executions. Within a day, those promises proved to be worthless, with militants plundering the city and going door to door seeking and killing people with a connection to the Kabul government, the Times reports.

Hassina Sarwari, who runs a shelter for abused women, tells the Times that militants tried to hunt down the shelter's residents and workers. When the militants couldn't find the caretaker, they murdered her husband and kidnapped her son, says Sarwari, who managed to escape the city. The Afghan army moved to retake the city on Thursday and is now believed to control most of it, although fighting continues in some areas, the BBC reports. Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who became the group's new leader in August, tells the AP that the capture of Kunduz was a "symbolic victory" that showed the group's strength and was "celebrated by the ordinary people of the city." (More Taliban stories.)