Afghanistan: UN condemns Taliban's brutal crackdown on protests

The UN has condemned the Taliban for what it called an "increasingly violent response" to dissent, weeks after the group's rapid takeover of Afghanistan.

The body said Taliban fighters killed four people during recent protests.

Demonstrations have taken place across Afghanistan since the fall of Kabul on 15 August, demanding respect for women's rights and greater freedoms.

Taliban fighters have used batons, whips, and live ammunition against protesters, the UN said in its report.

"We call on the Taliban to immediately cease the use of force towards, and the arbitrary detention of, those exercising their right to peaceful assembly and the journalists covering the protests," a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a press statement.

Taliban fighters swept across Afghanistan in August, capturing provincial centres and eventually the capital Kabul itself in less than two weeks.

The US then led an airlift from the capital's international airport, evacuating more than 120,000 people before pulling out its own forces on 31 August.

The collapse to the Taliban follows two decades of US military operations in Afghanistan, after American and allied forces ousted the Taliban from power in 2001 following the 9/11 terror attacks.

The US will mark the 20th anniversary of those attacks on Saturday.