For their involvement in corruption, drugs and links to ISIS,the Taliban is expelling about three thousand of its members

The "Taliban" movement expelled about three thousand of its members on accusations of transgressions, as part of a massive "audit process" launched by the movement.

An official in the "Taliban" announced Saturday that the movement has expelled about three thousand of its members accused of committing abuses, as part of a wide "audit process" launched by the movement since it seized power in Afghanistan.

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan last August after a 20-year armed movement against previous governments backed by the United States and NATO.

Following their pledge of a softer style of governance than theirs between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban established a committee to identify its members who would violate its rules.

Speaking about the expelled members of the movement, Latifullah Hakimi, head of the committee at the Ministry of Defense, said, "They were doing a disservice to the Islamic Emirate they were excluded during this audit so that we could build a clean army and police force in the future," noting that so far Two thousand 840 members were dismissed.

Al-Hakimi added in an interview with Agence France-Presse, that the excluded "were implicated in corruption and drugs, and were interfering in people's private lives, and some of them also have links to ISIS," using the Arabic abbreviated name of the terrorist organization "ISIS".

Human rights organizations accuse the "Taliban" fighters of committing extrajudicial killings of former members of the security forces, despite the issuance of an order by the movement's supreme commander Hebatullah Akhundzada to pardon them.

The emergence of the terrorist organization "ISIS" in Afghanistan posed a major challenge to the Taliban, as its officials often became the target of attacks in Kabul and other cities.

Al-Hakimi explained that the detainees come from 14 states, and the process of "liquidation" will continue in other states.

What did Latin security contractors say about their participation in the US presence in Afghanistan?

Out of their control, many Latin Americans found themselves fighting for the United States, as "soldiers" in the face of the Taliban "without any protection or adequate armament against a much better armed enemy," says Colombian soldier Francisco Landíz.

Like Latin American soldiers who came to Afghanistan to work in the field of private security, and then turned to face the Taliban as soldiers, the Peruvian "Vladimir Florez" remembers the early hours of the morning of September 13, 2013, when he was 32 years old, and he was in charge of Guards from the US consulate tower in the western city of Herat, when a car bomb driven by a suicide bomber stormed the diplomatic mission headquarters.

"I was thrown to the ground. There was fire everywhere, people were screaming," says Florith, describing the event.

After the explosion, which wounded Latin American guards and killed eight Afghans, Florith and his comrades had to confront the Taliban within two hours of an exchange of fire, until American forces intervened.

"They didn't give me a single (extra) dollar to save the Americans," says Floreth from Lima.

Out of their control, many Latin Americans found themselves fighting for the United States, "without any protection or adequate armament against a much better-armed enemy," says another soldier, Colombian Francisco Landínez.

Retired security company soldiers

Landeniz, a retired soldier, runs Persecuted Veterans, a Miami-based organization whose role is for Hispanic employees of private security firms deployed in Afghanistan to serve American interests to benefit from the same benefits as American veterans. Terms of monetary compensation and the right to reside in the United States.

But according to a study conducted by Brown University in the United States, between 2011 and 2021, 3,917 of these private company soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, a large number of them non-Afghans, in addition to other numbers of deaths that have not been officially recorded.

Colombians 'inexpensive filly'

Jorge Estevez (pseudonym) is a former member of the Colombian army's intelligence services. He went to Afghanistan as a ranger for $1,400 a month, but found himself a fighter since 2010 for five years.

Estevez was patrolling the streets of Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif (north) and Herat. After returning home in 2015, Jorge lives in the family home in a popular area of ​​Bogota, and deals with the trauma of his five years in Afghanistan. This former soldier explains that he has had recurring nightmares and is taking antidepressant medication due to his post-traumatic stress disorder. Estevez also says he has no social life, adding, "Today we are unknown, forgotten, we have been exploited."

Colombian mercenaries are spread all over the world, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. They are implicated in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.

The president of the Colombian Association of Retired Soldiers, Colonel John Marulanda, explains that although mercenary activity is illegal according to the United Nations, private contractors and security agencies operate legally "all over the world, especially in areas experiencing security disturbances."

Marulanda adds that Colombians are "wanted" because they are "inexpensive" and "skilled". But also because they have more than half a century of experience fighting against guerrilla warfare, which makes them "experts in managing high security risks."

In the informal hierarchy of US military aides in Baghdad or Kabul, the Colombians occupy a rather modest position behind the European Anglo-Saxon "contractors", particularly the French, Slavs, and Eastern Europeans.

With their meager pensions of about $350 a month, former Colombian soldiers often agree to join the security sector abroad.

As Colonel Marulanda explains, about 10,000 soldiers retire each year in Colombia and it is an "uncontrollable, neglected force".

"I didn't intend to fight on the front lines. My job was just to protect the facilities as a security guard," said Freddy, 49, a former Colombian soldier who fought on missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These forgotten fighters, who refuse to be called mercenaries, have staged numerous protests in front of the US embassies in Bogota, Lima, Miami and Washington.

For his part, Landeniz, who runs the Persecuted Veterans Foundation, considers that the Latins were merely "cannon fodder" for US forces. He described the orders they were receiving as a "deadly trap" for them.

Many Latinos keep contracts and other documents signed with shadowy companies, based in Colombia or Dubai, most of which have disappeared today.

And there are those who hold contracts with "International Development Solutions" and it was, according to "Foreign Policy" magazine, "a subsidiary of the Blackwater Group", an American company that changed its brand name several times since the 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians.

In 2018, the United Nations called for more effective regulation of military and private security companies through the frameworks established by international law.