Taliban violently disperse protest in eastern Afghanistan
Jalalabad demonstration ends with gunfire, reports of one dead and multiple injured
One person has been killed and six others are reported wounded Wednesday as videos are emerging of the Taliban violently breaking up a protest in eastern Afghanistan.
Footage obtained by Fox News shows a crowd in the streets of Jalalabad unfurling a large Afghanistan flag amidst the sounds of cheers.
Gunshots then ring out as the crowd continues to wave the flag up and down, before a video taken later shows people running away from the scene as more consistent gunfire is heard.
Video shows the Taliban dispersing a protest in Jalalabad on Wednesday. (Fox News)
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"There was panic when the Taliban fired openly on people who ran away, some hid in streets and others went inside shops," Babrak Amerzada, a local journalist at the scene, told Fox News.
He added "at the same time another Taliban group came and hit my camera and beat us with their rifle boots and later another group came and apologized to us.
"Then I escaped from scene and hid in the national radio and TV station building," Amerzada said.
A local health official told the Associated Press that at least one person was killed and six were wounded. The official was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Babrak Amirzada, a reporter for a local news agency, also told the AP that he and a TV cameraman from another agency were beaten by the Taliban as they tried to cover the unrest.
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The people had gathered in Jalalabad to raise the national flag a day before Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the end of British rule in 1919.
They had lowered the Taliban flag — a white banner with an Islamic inscription — that the militants have raised in the areas they captured.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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