Taliban CELEBRATES US exit from Afghanistan, VOWS to ENFORCE Islamic RULE…
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Politics
— 4 years ago(August 31, 2021 04:36 PM)Group’s leaders inspect Kabul airport, stage MOCK FUNERALS for US and NATO.
Taliban militants took control of Kabul’s airport after the last US cargo plane took off before President Biden’s Aug. 31st deadline. The departure marks the end of America’s longest war, which lasted nearly 20 years.
Photo: Taliban Handout/Reuters.
Taliban fighters and their supporters rallied across Afghanistan to celebrate the end of 20 years of foreign military presence on Tuesday, pledging to implement strict Islamic rule as ordinary Afghans, many of them bewildered and scared, grappled with the uncertain future ahead.
Tens of thousands of Afghans still desperately sought to leave the country by overland routes, and many—particularly in Kabul—viewed the new era in Afghanistan’s bloody history with fear and apprehension.
Senior figures in the Islamist movement posed in front of a C-130 transport plane at the Kabul airport, the hub of a chaotic US-led evacuation operation in recent days. Fighters took selfies in the cockpits of Afghan military helicopters that had been disabled and abandoned.
Taliban members sat in an abandoned Afghan Air Force aircraft at Kabul’s airport on Tuesday.
Photo: Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
“We hope that Afghanistan will not be invaded again, that it will be rebuilt, remain independent, and that a holy Islamic system will rule,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, as uniformed fighters in modern combat gear knelt on the tarmac and chanted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.”.
Speaking to members of the Taliban’s Badri 313 unit, Mr. Mujahid said: “I praise all your sacrifices, congratulate you all on the great victory, and on achieving independence and freedom for Afghanistan.”.
The day represented a historic moment for the Taliban, who were ousted by the 2001 US invasion in the wake of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks—plotted by al Qaeda on Afghan soil.
The group has already received congratulations for its comeback from scores of Islamist movements around the world, including those that Washington classifies as terrorist.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid addressed the media at Kabul’s airport on Tuesday.
Photo: Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
While the Taliban offered amnesty to former government officials and soldiers after taking Kabul and tried to project a more moderate image, they are increasingly returning to their old ways. The Taliban-appointed acting minister of higher education has said women and men could no longer attend the same university lectures, women presenters have been banned from radio and TV in the southern city of Kandahar, and dozens, if not hundreds, of former security officials have been executed.
The Taliban, who committed to seeking a peaceful settlement in the February 2020 agreement they signed with the Trump administration in Doha, Qatar, managed to seize power on Aug. 15th even though foreign forces still remained in the country.
For the past two weeks, Taliban units deployed in an uneasy cooperation with the US troops around the Kabul airport as Washington and its allies carried out a massive airlift that flew out some 122,000 foreign citizens and Afghans who feared persecution by the country’s new rulers.
Many others, including between 100 and 200 American citizens, have been left behind. There are currently no commercial flight operations in Kabul, and it was unclear when they would resume.
No longer an insurgent movement, the Taliban now must run a country of nearly 40 million people that is cut off from the rest of the world and lacks an internationally recognized government or access to the global financial system and aid.
US Army Maj. Gen. CD Donahue boarded a transport plane Monday as the last American soldier to leave Kabul, according to the XVIII Airborne Corps.
Photo: US Army/Reuters.
The Taliban also have to contend with the threat posed by the more radical Islamic State, which carried out last week one of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the war, killing 13 US troops and some 200 Afghans.
Since the fall of the Afghan republic, prices of basic commodities have soared, the Afghan currency plummeted and the banking system seized up, with withdrawals limited to $200 a week and long lines forming outside branches. Kabul’s main money-changers market, Saray-e-Shahzada, remains closed.
The US and other Western nations as well as India have shut their embassies in Kabul. Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran and North Atlantic Treaty Organization member Turkey, however, have retained diplomatic presence in the Afghan capital. While not formally recognizing the Taliban authorities, they are in regular contact with them.
Senior Taliban officials have said that they seek an inclusive government and in recent weeks met several figures of the deposed Afghan republic, including former President Hamid Karzai and former chief peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah.
These, however, were mostly courtesy visits during which little substance was