A passenger vehicle ferrying employees of Taliban’s al-Farooq corps was the target of an armed attack in the city of Herat on Monday morning, local sources told Afghanistan International. Sources added that the incident took place in Police District 4 of Herat.
According to these sources, the clash between the two warring factions continued for nearly half an hour.
Shah Mahmood Rasooli, Taliban’s spokesperson for Herat police headquarters, confirmed the attack and told the media that one of the attackers was killed by the Taliban forces, but two others fled.
Local Taliban officials didn’t provide details about the casualties of the incident. Meanwhile, media reports stated that at least two Taliban members were killed and over 20 Taliban members and civilians were wounded in the attack
The National Resistance Front (NRF) reacted to Taliban’s supreme leader’s latest stance saying that peace with the Taliban is not possible for now. Ali Maisam Nazary, Head of Foreign Relations of NRF, told Afghanistan International, that they will continue to fight the Taliban.
Nazary, while reacting to the latest audio recording attributed to Hibatullah Akhundazada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, called the Taliban a totalitarian group and added that the group has connections with terrorist groups.
On Friday, Taliban published an audio file attributed to their supreme leader. In the recording, Akhundzada rejected any engagement with the international community because Sharia law is a priority to him.
In the audio note, Akhundzada addressed the international community and stressed that they will not negotiate on Sharia law, and “our life and death is with God”. He added that “they will not act upon other’s will”.
Expressing doubts over the Taliban leader’s presence, Nazary said that it has not yet been proven that the person whose audio file was published on Friday was the Taliban’s supreme leader.
Nazary also questioned the Taliban’s unity and said that the group does not have a sole leader. He claimed that the Taliban have wide political and ideological rifts.
Mufti Mahmood Zakeri, one of the participants of the Taliban’s Ulema gathering, called on the group to establish universities along with seminaries. On the third day of the gathering, Zakeri said that religious scholars are not against modern sciences.
Zakeri said that the Taliban should pay attention to the issue of education, as per Taliban-controlled media organization, Bakhtar News Agency.
He added that even during the 3rd century (Islamic era), when the West was “absolutely wild”, Muslims had universities. He emphasized that Muslims are the founders of modern sciences.
Zakeri said that now infidels are using modern sciences as a military and intellectual weapon “against us”.
Over the past three days, Zakeri is the second cleric to speak about the importance of education. Sayeed Nasrullah Vaezi from Bamiyan province too supported girls’ education and called for reopening of girls’ schools during the Ulema gathering.
Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, advised Taliban to engage with other predominantly Muslim countries with experience in promoting women and girls’ rights, as guaranteed in international law, in that religious context.
Bachelet, who was speaking at the urgent debate on women and girls in Afghanistan at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier today, added that the recent country visit by an Organization of Islamic Cooperation delegation is a significant step in this direction.
She asked the Taliban to set a firm date for the opening of secondary schools for girls, and to ensure quality education, without discrimination, and resources for teachers.
She noted that since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, women and girls are experiencing the most significant and rapid roll-back in enjoyment of their rights across the board in decades. “Their future will be even darker, unless something changes, quickly,” she added.
Recalling her visit to the country in March this year, Bachelet said that the Taliban had promised that they would honour their human rights obligations, as far as consistent with Islamic sharia law. “Yet, despite these assurances, we are witnessing the progressive exclusion of women and girls from the public sphere and their institutionalised, systematic oppression,” she said.
Bachelet added that as the de-facto authority exercising effective control, Taliban have the obligation to eliminate discrimination against women and ensure women’s right to equal participation in civic and public life, including politics and decision-making.
She said that the women in Afghanistan want direct, in-person, dialogue with the de facto authorities and urged the Taliban to engage in meaningful dialogue with them and remove restrictions of women’s freedom of movement. Bachelet also spoke about the need to re-establish independent authorities to receive complaints from the public and protect victims of gender-based violence.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sought concerted efforts from the international community to pressurise the Taliban to restore, protect and promote the rights of Afghan women and girls.
She added that it is pertinent to make sure that human rights, including women’s rights and concerns, are at the centre of all humanitarian assessments and programming.
Women under the Taliban are currently facing oppression in their day-to-day life with restrictions on movement, dress, no access to education and rolling back of their achievements over the past 20 years.
Maulawi Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a participant of the Taliban’s Ulema gathering in Kabul, said today that geography can be possessed by suicide attackers and car bombs, but people’s hearts can’t be won with these tactics.
Referring to the Eid Al-fitr occasion, when the Taliban had announced Eid a day before the other Islamic countries, he said that religious scholars first chanted the Eid prayers, and then, upheld their fast again. He called on the Taliban not to issue irrelevant fatwas.
During his speech, he added that the “current Islamic government is unique, but we know that it can’t be like prophet Mohammad’s system”.
On the first day of the event, Maulawi Habibullah Haqqani, chairman of the Taliban’s gathering, asked participants to obey Hibatullah Akhundazada with “firm resolve”.
Most of the speakers of the Ulema gathering have emphasized on supporting the Taliban government.
All participants of the Taliban’s Ulema gathering pledged allegiance to the group’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada on Friday, according to Bakhtar, a Taliban-controlled news agency.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, Taliban’s acting interior minister, at the beginning of the second day’s meeting, announced the presence of Hibatullah Akhundzada at the Loya Jirga tent in Kabul, the venue of the gathering.
However, no photo or video recording of the meeting depicting the presence of the group’s leader has been released, so far. The Taliban has banned reporters from attending the gathering.
The presence of Akhundzada is significant as no photos or videos of the group’s supreme leader have been released in the ten months since the Taliban's dominance over Afghanistan.
To add to the mystery, recently, former Afghan spy chief Rahmatullah Nabil, published a Taliban video and claimed that the group portrayed a man named Mullah Hamdullah as Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Based on his sources, Mr. Nabil claimed that Mullah Hamdullah was the same person who delivered a speech during Eid al -Fitr on April 30th earlier this year and appeared in the role of the Taliban’s supreme leader at the Hakimia School of Kandahar last year.
The former spy chief said that the same person may appear in the Taliban Ulema gathering under the false guise of Mullah Hibatullah.