Taliban urges people to hand over weapons amid house-to-house searches

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The Taliban government in Afghanistan have urged civilians to handover government property, including weapons, as house-to-house searches continued in Kabul and neighbouring provinces, the media reported.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said to prevent further continuation of the ongoing searches, termed by the regime as "clean-up operations", it would be better if people voluntarily handed over all government property, reports Khaama Press.

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) asks all Afghans to hand over weapons, government property, and illegal items and share information about kidnappers and thieves before the searching teams reach out to their houses. We ask people to cooperate with the IEA and voluntarily hand over weapons," he was quoted as saying.

The searches were launched by the IEA last week. Friday was the eighth day of the raids, TOLO News reported.

A spokesman for the Kabul security department, Khalid Zadran, said that the Taliban forces had seized military equipment from houses in Kabul.

"Hundreds light and heavy weapons were seized in these clearing operations. In PD2 of (Kabul city) we detected six Humvees," he said.

Earlier the IEA in a statement said that seven Humvees were seized from a residence in PD2.

According to some reports, the house-to-house raids began in the northern provinces of Balkh and Faryab.

--IANS

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