Taliban Fighters Swarm Herat City; Women Protesters Label Taliban As “Cowards”

The Taliban has not reacted to these reports so far.

After the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in a US drone strike in Kabul earlier in 2022, the US Department of Defense announced that there are significant terrorist threats from Afghanistan.

Earlier, drones have been spotted in other provinces of Afghanistan too.

After the Taliban has returned to power in August 2021, the US has not carried out any attack against Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.

Several Taliban leaders have been on the list of international terrorists, and the United States has offered millions of dollars in bounty for providing information that leads to the arrest or killing of these people.

These leaders include the Taliban interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani; Taliban defense minister, Mullah Yaqoob; Taliban’s Minister of Public Works, and brother of the former leader, Mullah Mannan Niazi. These leaders had no media appearance, but soon after the group’s return to power in 2021, they have been the public faces of the group.

Even though the United States has no military footprints in Afghanistan, the country continues to carry on over-the-horizon missions across the country.

Under this mission, while the US has not targeted any Taliban leader, it has carried out operations against Islamic State-Khurasan (IS-K) and al-Qaeda members.

However, a Taliban security official told Afghanistan International on condition of anonymity that Washington had committed not to attack Taliban leaders.

A senior security official of the former government, who had regularly participated in senior security meetings of Ashraf Ghani’s government, too, confirmed the Doha secret annexures of not targeting Taliban leaders.

The source added that before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the Taliban’s current defense minister Mullah Yaqoob and foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi held public appearances and roamed freely in southern Afghanistan.

The former Afghan government at that time had detained a journalist for allegedly conducting an interview with Mullah Yaqoob and forced Shamshad TV not to air an interview with Muttaqi.

The poem stated, “What can I say? There is nothing to say,”. Twitter users have responded to his verses and stated that he should not focus on poetry, rather he must act.

The dissatisfaction of Anas Haqqani, who is also the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interior minister of the Taliban and leader of the Haqqani Network, evident in the poem exposes the deep divisions between the Taliban leaders.

In one of the rhymes, Haqqani said, "Demanding and holding Jirga is no longer effective among Pashtuns, and there is no intention to accept [advice]."

It seems that the Haqqani Network which had been behind the bloodiest attacks against civilian targets in major cities of Afghanistan can no longer stand against the powerful traditional leadership of the Taliban from southern Afghanistan.

The wave of resignations of university lecturers began when the Taliban ordered banning girls from higher education in public and private universities across Afghanistan.

These university professors have individually resigned from their positions. but have mentioned clearly that they no longer continue to work in the higher education field in Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education.

They have also said that they are not ready to return to Afghanistan until the decree of the Taliban leader against girls’ higher education is revoked.

At the same time, a number of university professors have announced that they will not attend classes until the Taliban’s decision on banning girls’ education has been revoked.

Meanwhile, many students across Afghanistan have boycotted attending classes until female university students are allowed to return to their classes.

Kandahar has been considered the stronghold of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Also, the Taliban has previously said that the group’s leader resides in the city of Kandahar. Women's protest in the traditional base of the Taliban is considered unprecedented.

According to sources, protesters from different areas had been on their way toward the city center to hold the protest in Kandahar city center, but the Taliban prevented the movement of these demonstrators and disrupted their demonstration. The sources added that the Taliban surrounded the female protesters in District 6 of Kandahar city and stopped their gathering.

The Taliban said that based on a decree of their leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, girls are not allowed to receive education across Afghanistan.

Sources told Afghanistan International that in addition to the students, several other young citizens of the city too gathered from different areas and joined the protesters to march toward the office of the Kandahar governor.

According to sources, the Taliban have stationed their forces in various areas of Kandahar city and have concentrated their fighters around the vicinity of Mirwais Neeka university.

They have also banned gatherings of more than five people at a time in one place.