With their takeover complete and the U.S. in full retreat, the Taliban is gloating – giving interviews to Western reporters practically taunting President Joe Biden and defending late terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
“These are our happiest moments,” Zabiullah Mujahid told NBC News this week as he celebrated the departure of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after the two-decade war.
And he suggested that bin Laden was framed for the 9/11 attacks.
“When Osama bin Laden became an issue for the Americans, he was in Afghanistan,” he said, adding there’s “no proof” he was involved in the attack, which killed nearly 3,000 people, plus another 4,000 first responders who died of cancer and other conditions related to their work in the years that followed.
But Mujahid said bin Laden was just “an excuse” for war.
“There is no evidence, even after 20 years of war, we have no proof he was involved,” Mujahid said, adding there was “no justification” for the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Mujahid also admitted that the Taliban doesn’t want Afghans fleeing to the safety of the United States.
“We don’t want our countrymen to go to America,” he said, insisting that Afghans who worked with U.S. forces will be given “amnesty” and there would be no retribution.
“We need young, educated professionals for our nation,” he said. “But if they want to leave, it’s their choice.”
That flies in the face of reports on the ground Taliban forces have been blocking the road to the airport, cracking down on protesters, and even executing surrendering Afghan troops.
We’re hearing additional reports of #Taliban executions of surrendering Afghan troops. Deeply disturbing & could constitute war crimes.
— U.S. Embassy Kabul (@USEmbassyKabul) August 12, 2021
Then came the deadly attack at the airport in which 13 U.S. troops and at least 60 Afghans were killed.
ISIS – a Taliban rival – claimed responsibility for the attack, and U.S. military officials are now in the uncomfortable position of relying on Taliban commanders to help thwart additional attacks as the evacuation continues.
The Taliban were known for their brutal rule over Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 in which they gave safe harbor to bin Laden and his al Qaeda network while terrorizing their own citizens.
Women were forbidden from working outside their home.
They weren’t even allowed to leave home without a male relative accompanying them, and had to be fully covered in a burqa.
Women who violated this strict code were beaten and flogged in public punishment.
Now, the Taliban insists, they’re different, claiming women won’t be mistreated this time around.
However, the same spokesman who spoke to NBC News issued a chilling warning to women in the nation in a separate interview: Stay home… or else.
“We are worried our forces who are new and have not been yet trained very well may mistreat women,” Mujahid told The New York Times. “We don’t want our forces, God forbid, to harm or harass women.”
Taliban fighters have been reportedly taking young women and girls as forced brides… and worse.
In his interview with NBC News, Mujahid dismissed those reports as “propaganda.”
But the Dallas Morning News spoke to a dissident who had inside reports of Taliban fighters going through conquered villages in search of girls over the age of 15… and not just as brides, but to be raped by the fighters.
“Nothing has changed. They [the Taliban] are trying to say that they have changed their behavior, but they have not,” Fariha Easer told the newspaper. “They have not changed, and they will not change. They are defined by violence, killing, by a constant violating of human rights.”
Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Adviser Brian Castner was in the nation until last week, and he agreed. He told the Times his organization already has reports of retaliation, including door-to-door hunts for victims.
“The rhetoric and the reality are not matching at all,” he said. “And I think that the rhetoric is more than just disingenuous.”
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert.