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‘150,000 Americans Couldn’t Beat Us & Extra 4,000 US Soldiers Will Not Change Morale of Mujahideen’: Taliban Commander
A Taliban commander named Mullah Abdul Saeed and who leads 150 Taliban militants has referred to U.S. former President, Barack Obama’s surge and said, “150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us.” And an extra 4,000 US soldiers, as Donald Trump will deploy, “will not change the morale of our Mujahedeen”.
According to the Guardian report, the Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Saeed claimed “The Americans were walking in our villages, and we pushed them out.” For the Taliban to consider peace, he said, “foreigners must leave, and the constitution must be changed to sharia.”
The Guardian met Mullah Abdul Saeed in the barren backcountry of Logar province and in interviews with rank-and-file Taliban fighters in Logar and Wardak provinces found a fragmented but resilient movement, united in resistance against foreign intervention.
“It’s true, it has become harder to fight the Americans. But we use suicide bombers, and we will use more of them,” Saeed told Guardian. “If the US changes its tactics of fighting, so do us.” That change has meant ever-fiercer attacks, with large truck bombs in populated areas and audacious assaults on military bases.
Pressed on the record-high number of civilian deaths in the war, Saeed said the Taliban “make mistakes” and try to avoid harming civilians, but added: “If there is an infidel in a flock of sheep, you are permitted to attack that flock of sheep.”
Saeed claimed: “10-15 people join the mujahideen [in Logar] every day, sometimes also policemen,” adding that mistreatment by government and foreign forces helps recruitment.
“Many Taliban become suicide bombers after prison. Why?” he asked, describing how prison guards torture detainees by applying air pressure, beatings or electric shock to their genitals. After a detainee is released, he said, the shame is too much to bear. Such claims of government torture have been documented by the UN.
This comes as the U.S. President Donald Trump has previously said “We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists and in the end we will win”.
Source: The Guardian
Pakistan’s government on Friday extended the stay of Afghan refugees in the country till June 30, amid repatriation of illegal foreign nationals.
There are around 1.3 million registered Afghans living in Pakistan, according to a spokesman for UN refugee agency UNHCR in Islamabad, Dawn newspaper reported.
“On the recommendation of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, the federal cabinet approved the extension of the validity of PoR cards of Afghan refugees from April 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024,” said an official statement, issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.
The PoR cardholders will be repatriated in the third phase of the plan that will begin after the repatriation of “illegal foreign nationals” residing in Pakistan is completed, the statement added.
The PoR card holders avail schools, bank accounts and other facilities in Pakistan.
Repatriation of undocumented refugees began on November 1 and continues. More than 500,000 Afghans have been expelled so far.
John Bass, US acting under secretary of state for political affairs, will travel to Qatar and Pakistan April 26-30, US State Department announced on Friday.
In Doha, Qatar, he will meet with senior Qatari government officials and other diplomatic missions to discuss support for Afghanistan and shared security interests in the region, US State Department said in a statement.
In Islamabad, Pakistan, Under Secretary Bass will meet with senior Pakistani government officials to discuss a range of regional and bilateral issues as part of the U.S.-Pakistani partnership, the statement added.
John Bass served as US ambassador to Afghanistan under Donald Trump administration between December 2017 and January 2020.
A tripartite meeting between the delegations of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan was held in Kabul with the aim of connecting North Asia to South Asia and reducing transit and transportation costs among these three countries, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce said in a statement.
In this meeting, an agreement was reached on the creation of a joint technical committee to continue the talks.
This tripartite meeting was held under the leadership of Nooruddin Azizi, the Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, Vice President of Turkmenistan and Srik Zhumangarin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan.
Earlier, a bilateral meeting was held between the delegation of the Islamic Emirate and Turkmenistan. The ministry of commerce said the participants of the meeting discussed the construction of a large joint logistics center in Torghondi, the trilateral transit agreement between the IEA, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, the expansion of Afghanistan’s railway, solving issues related to Afghan transit and export goods, and a number of other commercial issues.
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