Displaced families in Kabul seek help

KABUL, Aug 27 (Agencies): Hundreds of Afghan families who have been camping in searing heat at a Kabul park after the Taliban overran their provinces begged for food and shelter on Thursday, the most visible face of a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the war-torn country.

The Taliban's swift takeover of Afghanistan this month, culminating in the capture of Kabul on Aug 15, has thrown the country into turmoil.

While thousands of people have crowded the airport to try to flee, many others, like the families in the park, are stuck in limbo, unsure whether it is safer to try to go home or stay where they are.

"I'm in a bad situation," said Zahida Bibi, a housewife, sitting under the blazing sun with her large family. "My head hurts. I feel very bad, there is nothing in my stomach."

Ahmed Waseem, displaced from northern Afghanistan said those in the park were hoping the central government would pay attention. "We are in an open field and in the heat," he said.

A Taliban spokesman told Reuters the group was not providing food to the people at the park and others at the airport because it would lead to further overcrowding. They should return to their homes, he said.

Afghanistan's western-backed president and many other officials fled after government forces melted away in the face of the Taliban advance.

The group has placed its members in ministries and ordered some officials back to work but services are yet to resume, with banks still closed Phalwan Sameer, also from northern Afghanistan, said his family came to Kabul after the situation rapidly deteriorated in his home town.

"There (was) a lot of fighting and bombing as well. That's why we came here. The houses were burned and we became homeless," he said.

The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday it has only enough medical supplies in Afghanistan to last a week after deliveries were blocked by restrictions at Kabul airport and the UN World Food Programmeme said the country urgently needed $200 million in food aid.

The United Nations says more than 18 million people - over half of Afghanistan's population - require aid and half of all Afghan children under the age of five already suffer from acute malnutrition amid the second drought in four years.

The Taliban have assured the UN that it can pursue humanitarian work as foreign governments weigh the issue of whether and how to support the population under hardline Islamist rule.

Meanwhile, the Taliban's pitch to the Afghan people has always been simple-life under their hardline rule would finally bring security after decades of war.

Notorious for using suicide bombers during their insurgency, the Taliban are charged with guarding against the same kind of attacks now that they are in power.

The Islamic State-claimed blasts at Kabul airport on Thursday, which killed scores of Afghans as well as 13 US troops, is an early test.

"Last night's attacks have shown once again that no one group can claim monopoly over violence in Afghanistan or claim to secure it," said Abdul Basit, a research Fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi told AFP after the attack that IS "will be defeated".

But they side-stepped their own role in freeing some its prisoners.

During the Taliban blitz, which ended with the takeover of Kabul on August 15, a familiar pattern emerged-when each city fell, the militants would head for the prisons.

With thousands of seasoned Taliban fighters behind bars across Afghanistan, the tactic focused on allowing the group to replenish their depleted ranks.

But contrary to the Taliban's liking, others including battle-hardened militants from the Islamic State's Afghanistan-Pakistan chapter (IS-K) were also freed.

Hailing from different theological branches of hardline jihahidst thought, the two sides have duked it out in bloody clashes for years in Afghanistan.

The spree of prison breaks increasingly looks to have been a lethal error-seeding the future battlefield with the Taliban's enemies, while their own forces are stretched thin.

Before the Kabul airport attack, the Taliban were already trying to distance themselves from the prison debacle, piling blame on former president Ashraf Ghani who has fled the country.

"We are cautious and careful because prisoners from Daesh (IS) fled the jail and are hiding now after officials of the Kabul administration abandoned their posts," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Pakistani broadcaster Geo News this week.

Shaheen said the Taliban were aware of reports of the imminent threat posed by the group, as a string of Western governments warned IS was aiming to target the airport.