Brother of Afghanistan’s Constitutional ‘Caretaker President’ Executed by Taliban, Family Says

A burnt down Humvee is seen along a road in Dashtak, Panjshir province, on Sept. 6, 2021. AFP via Getty Images

The Taliban have executed the brother of Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan vice president who challenged the Taliban’s claims to government, his nephew said on Friday.

Saleh said in the days following former President Ashraf Ghani’s fleeing that led to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban that, according to the country’s 2004 constitution, he is the “legitimate caretaker president.”

He made the comments from the Panjshir valley where he became one of the leaders of anti-Taliban resistance forces.

The news that Saleh’s brother Rohullah Azizi was killed came days after Taliban forces took control of the provincial centre of Panjshir, although the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan says their fighters who have retreated deeper into the Panjshir valley will continue to fight for Afghanistan’s freedom from the Taliban.

“They executed my uncle,” Ebadullah Saleh told Reuters in a text message. “They killed him yesterday and would not let us bury him. They kept saying his body should rot.”

The Urdu language account of the Taliban information service Alemarah said that “according to reports.” Rohullah Saleh was killed during fighting in Panjshir.

The whereabouts of Saleh, who was also the former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, remains unclear.

The Epoch Times contributed to this report.