The Taliban jihadist terror group celebrated the ultimate withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan on Wednesday, the anniversary of the event, with fireworks and a celebration at Bagram Air Base, previously America’s largest navy facility within the nation.
As they did on August 15, the day of their seizure of Kabul, the Taliban declared Wednesday a nationwide vacation and arranged a sequence of ceremonies throughout the nation to mark the departure of American troops.
The Taliban, which dominated Afghanistan within the Nineteen Nineties, returned to energy on August 15, 2021, after then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the nation’s capital, Kabul. The jihadists had launched a nationwide marketing campaign to oust Ghani after leftist President Joe Biden introduced in April of that yr that he wouldn’t honor an agreemenst between Washington and the Taliban to withdraw all American forces from the nation by Might 1 of that yr, extending the struggle by September 11 – the twentieth anniversary of the al-Qaeda terrorist assaults that prompted the Afghan Warfare. In the end, Biden was unable to maintain his troops within the nation past August 31, because the Taliban overran the nation and seized key amenities reminiscent of Bagram.
Following the takeover, the Taliban seized billions of {dollars} in American navy gear, which it continues to make use of to oppress Afghans to at the present time. Bagram alone, in accordance with the Particular Inspector Common for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), was price upwards of $560 million when the Taliban overran it. Bagram was considered one of a minimum of ten different American navy amenities the Taliban took over upon ousting the U.S.-backed authorities.
The previous American navy base, Afghanistan’s Khaama Press reported, hosted a nationally televised celebration on Wednesday “which included a navy parade and triumph chants.” The parade served to showcase the dimensions of the Taliban’s navy, which it has been rebuilding following the whole collapse of Afghanistan’s Nationwide Protection and Safety Forces (ANDSF) final yr.
Video: At Bagram air base, the Islamic Emirate celebrates August 31 (9 of Sonbola) because the day the final US soldier left the nation.#TOLOnews pic.twitter.com/s6lSOV1R7H
— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) August 31, 2022
Taliban “Prime Minister” Mullah Hassan Akhund presided over the celebration at Bagram, providing a speech celebrating what he portrayed as an American defeat and crediting the Sunni jihadists with ending “killings and bombings” within the nation – a declare not corroborated by the fact of the previous yr in Afghanistan.
“Loss of life is over, there may be freedom day and night time, an individual can go anyplace, whether or not you’re a laborer, a farmer, or work in any sector, there’s a free area, whether or not from one nook of Afghanistan to a different. Go, there is no such thing as a downside for you,” Akhund proclaimed, apparently omitting girls from his declaration of freedom, as Taliban leaders have banned them from leaving their properties.
Akhund additionally condemned the US for freezing Afghan authorities belongings housed in American establishments and refusing to acknowledge the Taliban terrorist group because the official authorities of Afghanistan.
“When the foreigners departed Afghanistan, they took every thing with them and imposed sanctions, which exacerbated the nation’s poverty,” Tolo Information quoted Akhund as saying. “The trail of understanding, concord, and brotherhood will get outcomes, whereas pressures and sanctions don’t.”
Reviews revealed final week, citing nameless U.S. authorities officers, recommended that the Biden administration is contemplating unfreezing some funds for the Taliban.
Outdoors of the previous American navy base, Taliban leaders organized fireworks shows to rejoice their victory on Wednesday.
“The Islamic system has come, the white flag is waving at the moment on Afghan soil,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid celebrated on Twitter, the place the highest terrorist group mouthpiece usually publishes Taliban propaganda.
راغی اسلامي نظام راغی اسلامی، سپین بیرغ رپیږي نن په خاوره د افغان، زموږ وو ارمان زموږ وو ارمان pic.twitter.com/5tIVqwtumq
— Zabihullah (..ذبـــــیح الله م ) (@Zabehulah_M33) August 31, 2022
نوار تصویری: آتشبازی و شلیکهای هوایی امشب در کابل #طلوعنیوز pic.twitter.com/XZxqnvp7hg
— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) August 30, 2022
“Almighty Allah granted nice freedom and victory to our devoted and mujahid folks along with his grace and particular help. It’s mandatory for our mujahid and believing nation to present thanks for this nice freedom and victory,” Mujahid proclaimed in an official assertion on the anniversary additionally shared through Twitter. “On the arrival of the primary anniversary of this nice event, we congratulate your entire Islamic nation, particularly the mujahid and struggling nation, the mujahideen, the disabled, the wounded, orphans, widows and heirs of the martyrs, and we increase our fingers to Almighty Allah [to aid] all of the duties in settle for[ing] the best way of Jihad.”
Taliban leaders have spent the previous yr making an attempt to persuade the world to acknowledge them as reliable authorities leaders and promising a extra “inclusive” rule than their reign within the Nineteen Nineties, which was characterised by human rights atrocities within the title of their fundamentalist interpretation of sharia, or the Islamic legislation. The jihadists have nonetheless clung to the language of jihad, or holy struggle, and as lately as this week boasted the formalization of a wing of suicide bombers into its armed forces, the “Martyrdom Brigades.”
Taliban leaders additionally repeatedly declare they don’t have any ties to any terrorist group that poses a risk to exterior states. This declare met with a very conspicuous rebuke this month when the White Home introduced {that a} U.S. drone strike in Kabul had eradicated the pinnacle of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was reportedly residing overtly within the capital in a house believed to belong to Taliban “inside minister” Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Taliban leaders declare that they had “no data” of Zawahiri’s whereabouts and alleged final week that they by no means discovered his physique within the rubble of the drone strike, insisting they don’t have any cause to imagine that he was ever current in Afghanistan.
