Hibatullah Akhundzada, Taliban leader, for the first time questioned the armed resistance against the group at a meeting in Kandahar on Thursday.
“The Taliban’s war was against the foreigners, but who are the resistance fronts fighting against?” questioned Akhundzada.
Taliban-affiliated Bakhtar News Agency has published parts of the speech attributed to the Taliban leader, but no picture of him at the Kandahar meeting, has been published.
Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, the person whom the Taliban consider to be their leader has never appeared in public. However, periodically the Taliban publish decrees, news and audio files attributed to Akhundzada.
Bakhtar News Agency has quoted Akhundzada as asking Afghan professionals who have left the country to return "to build airplanes and vehicles inside the country because it will benefit the nation”.
Akhundzada has also said that he has “issued a decree to take care of child beggars”. “If a child of this country remains uneducated, the responsibility will return to me,” the Taliban leader has stressed. He said that he has asked Taliban officials to admit children begging on the streets to schools.” However, the Taliban leader still has not spoken about providing secondary education for girls in Afghanistan.
It has been more than 335 days since the Taliban prevented the reopening of girls' schools in Afghanistan.
The educational system in Afghanistan has suffered dramatically in the past two years as a result of COVID-19 and the Taliban reign of the country.
On Thursday, the Taliban held a meeting in Kandahar with the presence of the group's officials. In a resolution issued at the end of the Kandahar meeting, the Taliban condemned the US airstrike in Sherpur area of Kabul, which led to the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader.
In this resolution, it has also been mentioned that any neighbouring country of Afghanistan that has allowed the American drone to fly in its space is also a partner in this "crime".