KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Taliban view their rule of Afghanistan as open-ended, drawing legitimacy from Islamic regulation and going through no vital menace, their chief spokesman stated in an interview marking the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of the nation. He additionally instructed a ban on feminine training will stay in place.
Zabihullah Mujahid brushed apart any questions from The Related Press about restrictions on women and girls, saying he had nothing new to say on the matter whereas additionally indicating the established order will stay. The ban on women attending college past sixth grade was the primary of what within the second 12 months of Taliban management turned a flurry of restrictions that now maintain Afghan women and girls from lecture rooms, most jobs and far of public life.
The Taliban seized energy on August 15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the nation after 20 years of conflict.
They marked their second anniversary as rulers of Afghanistan on Tuesday, which was declared a public vacation. Girls, largely barred from public life, didn’t participate within the festivities.
Within the southern metropolis of Kandahar, the religious birthplace of the Taliban, army personnel posed with armored automobiles. Younger males rode by means of town on two wheels or 4, waving flags and brandishing weapons. Toddlers clutched smaller white Taliban flags with a photograph of the Protection Minister Maulvi Mohammad Yaqoob on the underside proper nook.
Within the capital, Kabul, pick-up vans full of males of assorted ages wound their means by means of town. Males swarmed Martyrs Sq., taking selfies and clambering on to a monument. Boys posed with rifles.
Over the previous two years, it has develop into more and more obvious that the seat of energy is in Kandahar, the house of supreme chief Hibatullah Akhundzada, slightly than the Taliban-led authorities in Kabul.
The interview with Mujahid passed off late Monday in a TV studio on a rundown former army compound in Kandahar. The U.N. Mission in Afghanistan and native authorities departments are positioned close by.
Mujahid arrived in a white SUV, accompanied by one guard and a driver. He spoke calmly and politely, falling again on Taliban speaking factors on points like girls’s rights and worldwide recognition.
He stated Taliban rule is open-ended as a result of it attracts its legitimacy from Islamic regulation, or Sharia. “There isn’t any mounted time period for the Islamic authorities,” he stated. “It would serve for so long as it will possibly and so long as the emir (the supreme chief) isn’t eliminated for doing one thing that goes in opposition to Sharia.”
Taking inventory after two years, Mujahid stated that there is no such thing as a menace to Taliban rule from inside or outdoors the nation. He claimed that the present authorities is appearing responsibly, and that Afghans crave consensus and unity. “There isn’t any want for anybody to insurgent,” Mujahid stated.
In a press release Tuesday, the Taliban authorities listed what it thought of its accomplishments, together with restoring a way of private security and nationwide pleasure.
The assertion makes no point out of the tens of hundreds of Afghans who fled within the aftermath of the takeover or the extreme financial downturn and deepening poverty as worldwide support dried up. On the identical time, the Taliban seem to have settled in, avoiding inner divisions and even holding their struggling economic system afloat, partly by holding funding talks with capital-rich regional nations.
Mujahid was reluctant to debate the restrictions on women and girls, brushing apart questions concerning the problem as repetitive and saying there was no level speaking about it except there have been updates.
He did counsel change was unlikely.
In conversations with overseas diplomats and support officers, the Taliban sometimes keep away from saying they oppose feminine training on precept, arguing as an alternative that they want extra assets and time to permit for gender segregation in lecture rooms and campuses, in keeping with their interpretation of Sharia.
Mujahid introduced this argument within the interview, noting that “the whole lot will probably be underneath the affect of Sharia.”
Requested why the Taliban aren’t enlisting Muslim-majority nations with Sharia-based techniques to restart feminine training, he stated the Taliban don’t want the assistance of others.
Akhundzada, the supreme chief, is seen because the main pressure behind the classroom ban which was issued unexpectedly in March 2022, simply as Kabul-based authorities ministers stated they have been getting ready to permit women from seventh grade and as much as return to high school.
Mujahid stated there was disagreement amongst spiritual students on feminine training, and instructed that sustaining concord amongst them was extra vital than getting women and girls again into lecture rooms.
The prospect of worldwide isolation, and the shortage of recognition as Afghanistan’s official authorities due to restrictions on girls and women, isn’t a urgent concern for the Taliban management.
“Our interplay with China, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan and different nations within the area is official,” he stated. “We have now embassies, journey, consulates. We have now companies. Merchants come and go and switch items. These are all of the issues that imply the popularity of officialdom.”
Help companies, rights teams and the U.N. this week issued statements condemning the Taliban’s rule and warning of the humanitarian disaster gripping the Afghan inhabitants.
World Imaginative and prescient stated the variety of individuals in want of help has elevated by round 5 million. It stated 15 million individuals will face “disaster” ranges of meals insecurity this 12 months, with 2.8 million within the “emergency” class, the fourth highest on this planet.
An alliance of rights teams, together with Amnesty Worldwide, stated the Taliban ought to be pressured to finish violations and repression and ought to be investigated for alleged crimes underneath worldwide regulation, together with gender persecution in opposition to girls and women.
In Geneva, the World Well being Group expressed concern about Afghans’ lack of entry to fundamental well being companies. Spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris stated 20% of the inhabitants endure from psychological well being issues and 4 million from drug habit and related issues.
“Most well being services have poor infrastructure, and there are fewer certified well being care staff because of immigration, limits on girls’s motion and employment, and lowered funds to pay salaries and maintain services open,” Harris stated.
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Related Press author Jamey Keaten contributed to this report from Geneva.