The Taliban have been at pains to present a reformed image since marching into Kabul this weekend after US president Joe Biden's abandonment of Afghanistan.
But a there is mounting evidence that the hardline Islamist regime is anything but reformed from the despotic jihadists of 20 years ago, who brutally oppressed women and allied themselves with Al Qaeda terrorists
Now those are being exposed, and Afghanistan's new rulers have proven beyond what little doubt there was that they are just as bloodthirsty and tyrannical as their equivalents from two decades ago.
The latest footage to emerge from within Afghanistan shows Taliban fighters attacking anyone carrying an Afghan national flag in at least a dozen incidents primarily in the capital Kabul.
It comes after human rights group Amnesty International revealed that Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of the country's Ghazni province last month, with eyewitnesses giving harrowing accounts of the killings.
Six men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off during the atrocity, which took place between 4-6 July in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district, the group revealed.
In another revenge killing, one regional police chief who stood against the Taliban was executed in cold blood by the jihadist group, local reports say.
Shocking video footage being circulated on the internet shows the kneeling handcuffed and blindfolded figure of General Haji Mullah Achakzai, chief of Badghis Province near Herat, being gunned down in a hail of bullets.
Among the other atrocities and oppression being reported:
The UN says jihadists are going door-to-door to threaten relatives of civil servants, interpreters and other consular staff, while other militants are even stopping people outside Kabul airport;
Taliban militants searched for a journalist for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and one of the reporter's family members was shot dead;
Three female TV anchors were barred from entering their channel's studio by Taliban and were ordered to 'to go home, remain there and never return';
Senior Afghan officials said they have been forced into 'deep hiding' to avoid the marauding fighters who they suspect have gained access to government employee databases
