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Afghan Asylum Seekers Purchase Forged Taliban Threats

<p>While the small groups of Syrian refugees crossing into the US this week via Texas presented themselves to authorities legally&comma; Afghans trying to get into Europe have resorted to Taliban threats &ndash&semi; nearly all of which have been revealed as fake&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The <em>Associated Press<&sol;em> reports that of all the Taliban threat letters presented by asylum seekers to authorities&comma; only about 1&percnt; are authentic&period; The photo above shows a forged letter received Friday&comma; November 13th&period; The document is believed to have been written in Afghanistan&rsquo&semi;s Kandahar province&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&ldquo&semi;Threatening letters from the Taliban&comma; once tantamount to a death sentence&comma; are now being forged and sold to Afghans who want to start a new life in Europe&comma;&rdquo&semi; AP reports&period;&nbsp&semi;While authentic letters &ldquo&semi;were traditionally sent to those alleged to have worked with Afghan security forces or US-led troops&comma; listing their &lsquo&semi;crimes&rsquo&semi; and warning that a &lsquo&semi;military commission&rsquo&semi; would decide on their punishment&comma;&rdquo&semi; the fake letters are harmless&period; Those selling are &ldquo&semi;doing a brisk business as tens of thousands of Afghans flee to Europe&comma; hoping to claim asylum&period; Forgers say a convincing threat letter can go for up to &dollar;1&comma;000&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&ldquo&semi;To this day I have only ever known one guy who genuinely got a threat letter from the Taliban&period; All the rest are fake&comma;&rdquo&semi; says Mukhamil&comma; an Afghan who has forged and sold at least 20 false threats&period;&nbsp&semi;The country of Afghanistan currenty faces a&nbsp&semi;24&percnt; unemployment rate&period; The government predicts that 160&comma;000 Afghans will flee the country by the end of 2015&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Meanwhile&comma; Germany continues to struggle under the crushing tide of refugees&period; The country has long been a supporter of Afghanistan and currently has over 900 soldiers stationed there&period; Germany&rsquo&semi;s top security official complains that Afghans are even fleeing areas of the country that are relatively safe&period; The number of people coming to Germany from those areas is &ldquo&semi;unacceptable&comma;&rdquo&semi; he stated last month&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>German officials aren&rsquo&semi;t worried about the fake threat letters&period; &ldquo&semi;Such documents are assessed in the context of examining the credibility of the overall account of the applicant&comma;&rdquo&semi; says Susanne Eikemeier&comma; spokeswoman for Germany&rsquo&semi;s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees&period; &ldquo&semi;While they can be drawn on as evidence of a threat by the Taliban&comma; the applicant&rsquo&semi;s entire account has to be coherent&comma; comprehensible&comma; and credible&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Even the Taliban has admitted that most of the letters are false&period; &ldquo&semi;All these so-called Taliban threat letters are fake&period; We are trying to provide a good environment for our youth to remain in their country&comma;&rdquo&semi; says Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid&period;&nbsp&semi;There have been no arrests associated with forged letters&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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