Ainullah Khalil, the Taliban’s chief appeals court judge in Khost province, has died in a traffic accident, according to a statement released by the Taliban Supreme Court.
The court confirmed his death but did not provide details about the exact location or timing of the incident.
The death comes amid a sharp rise in traffic accidents across Afghanistan in recent weeks, with dozens of people killed in separate incidents in multiple provinces.
Just one day earlier, two separate traffic accidents in Kandahar’s Daman district and Laghman province left at least seven people dead and eight others injured.
Many Afghan citizens have criticized the poor condition of roads, the lack of traffic signs, and weak monitoring of vehicles, saying road accidents have become one of the country’s deadliest daily crises.
According to statistics previously released by Taliban police authorities in Badakhshan province, at least 122 traffic accidents were recorded there over the past year, resulting in 136 deaths.
Ehsanullah Kamgar, spokesperson for the Taliban police command in Badakhshan, had also said that 175 people were injured in those incidents.
Experts say damaged roads, speeding, reckless driving, and the absence of proper transportation infrastructure remain among the primary causes of Afghanistan’s increasing traffic fatalities.
