BAMIYAN, Afghanistan—When Taliban gunmen stormed into a remote Afghan district this month, they terrorized residents and looted local businesses, and then they did something even more troubling: The group demanded the names and ages of girls and women they said would be rounded up and married off to their young fighters.
According to people in Saighan district, in the central highlands of Bamiyan province, the insurgents beat some men who tried to resist and forced some residents to show them closets of clothing to determine the ages of the girls and women who lived there. Among the women whose names they took down were widows of men killed fighting with the Afghan military against the insurgency.
