Kabul
In a recent speech at an event in Kabul on Friday, the Taliban’s supreme leader Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada warned foreigners to stop meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs and politics.
The reclusive leader told the conference that Afghanistan “cannot develop without being independent,” a source reported.
The Taliban’s supreme leader Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada has once again warned foreigners not to interfere in Afghanistan during a rare speech at a gathering of Islamic clerics in Kabul on Friday, according to sources.
In the speech, Akhundzada praised the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last August, almost two decades after they were driven from Kabul by US troops. According to sources, Akhundzada was named as the Taliban’s leader in 2016 after the group’s previous leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan. He retained the post when the group announced its interim government back in September.
The statements delivered by Akhundzada contradict the ones made by other members of the Taliban’s leadership in recent months who have expressed an openness to a more inclusive government in order to gain international support.
The World Bank has frozen projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the issue.
Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet warned that “women and girls in Afghanistan were experiencing the most significant and rapid roll-back in the enjoyment of their rights across the board in decades,” as she condemned the Taliban regime during an urgent meeting held in Geneva on Friday.
