Hours after the deployment of military forces to the border areas near Iran, a Taliban official said that Islam Qala customs on the border with Iran is open. Mohammad Abdullah Bilal, director of the Taliban customs in Herat, said that Islam Qala customs was operational.
Zaem Agha, the Taliban commissioner in Islam Qala, also said that the Afghanistan-Iran border crossing is open for passengers and goods.
According to video clips obtained by Afghanistan International, on Wednesday morning, the Taliban deployed a convoy of tanks and armoured vehicles to the Iranian border in the Islam Qala border region of Herat province.
Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s interior minister, said that the Taliban has dismissed some of its "irresponsible" or "low-level" officials who made statements against Iran. Vahidi didn’t name these dismissed Taliban officials.
However, Abdul Hamid Khorasani, the commander of the "Nasser Badri" unit of the Taliban, threatened Iran several times after the border conflict between the Taliban and Iran escalated in Nimroz province.
Khorasani had published a video clip, which he later deleted, warning that the Islamic Republic should owe gratitude to the patience of the Taliban elders, otherwise, his forces will fight Iran more eagerly than the jihad against the United States.
Recently, and before the border conflict between the two sides, Khorasani had announced that he had "resigned" from his position as the district governor of the Taliban in the Ahmadabad district of Paktia province.
Referring to the dismissal of some Taliban officials, Iran's Interior Minister added that they had made "unreasonable statements" against the Islamic Republic.
Vahidi said that Tehran has been engaging with the Taliban and "the issues should be resolved through dialogue".
He added that currently, the situation in the border areas of Afghanistan and Iran is calm and the borders are open to traffic.
Iran's interior minister said that the Taliban opened fire by mistake in the border areas of Nimroz, and during the skirmish, the two sides lost members of its forces.
He urged the Taliban to "be careful and justify their border guards so that such incidents do not happen".
On Saturday, the Taliban fighters and the border guards of the Islamic Republic clashed in the border areas of Nimroz province.
The Taliban has deployed heavy military equipment and weapons at the Islam Qala border with Iran. Videos received by Afghanistan International show that a convoy of Humvees and tanks has been sent from Herat to the border with Iran.
According to local sources, the deployment of troops and advanced military equipment has taken place after verbal tension between the Taliban and the Iranian side.
Local sources said that the Taliban have prevented the construction of a road and the installation of barbed wire by the Iranian border guards.
After the reports about the tension between Iranian and Taliban forces at the Islam Qala border, Iranian media reported that the situation is calm in the border region.
Tasnim News Agency, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, denied reports of tension between the Taliban and the border guards of the Islamic Republic.
On Tuesday night, it was reported the traders had evacuated fuel tankers and other transport vehicles from Islam Qala and Dogharon borders.
However, Taliban officials have not officially commented on deploying troops to the border at Islam Qala.
Reports of tensions at the Islam Qala border emerged as earlier the Taliban and border guards of the Islamic Republic engaged in a border skirmish in Nimroz.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has ordered university professors to refrain from criticising the group’s government in their academic papers. According to a letter obtained by Afghanistan International, the professors must know Dari and Pashto languages.
The letter contains seven points as orders to be followed in research and translation and has been signed by Hamidullah Muzammil, the director of research and translation of the Ministry of Higher Education of the Taliban.
A reliable source from the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education confirmed the authenticity of the letter.
The letter orders professors to defend the current Taliban regime and avoid any kind of criticism in their writings so as to not face any consequences.
The letter explicitly asked that the professors to avoid using Persian terms for “court, prosecutor, student, university, and faculty,” in their research work. The Ministry of Higher Education of the Taliban has said that the country has "national terms" for these words and those terms must be used.
Banning Persian terms, particularly for universities in different cities of Afghanistan, has caused many reactions inside Afghan universities and the media. The Taliban’s government agencies have labeled these Persian terms as “foreign” and prevented their use by Persian speakers of Afghanistan. It is while the officials of the previous Afghan government and the Taliban are not sensitive towards terms from Urdu and English languages used across the country.
Earlier, the Taliban had removed Persian words from plaques of government agencies across Afghanistan.
The letter, too, has stated that the university professors need to learn Pashto and Dari as the two official languages of Afghanistan. The letter emphasised that "each professor must be able to read, write, speak and teach both official languages."
The letter also ordered university professors to write with “full respect” the names of national figures including “Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan”; “Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi”, “and “Ahmad Shah Baba.” The Taliban have threatened that failure to comply with these orders will result in the prosecution of "the author, researcher, translator, supervisor” and other university officials, including the university chancellor.
The letter from the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education stressed that the authors of academic papers must quote Islamic views in their writings and that failure to comply with these orders will have severe consequences.
Masoom Stanekzai, the former chief negotiator of previous Afghan government, urged the Taliban and Iran not to act based on emotional actions and think of the consequences due to the conflict. Stanekzai said that “Creating tension may be easy, but has irreparable consequences.”
On Wednesday, the former chief peace negotiator emphasised that the tension between the Islamic Republic and the Taliban should be resolved through dialogue. According to him, "Afghans need peace, not the interference of others."
Over the past few weeks, tension between Iran and the Taliban escalated on the water rights issue from the Helmand River, and on Saturday, border guards of both the sides clashed in Nimroz province.
A Taliban fighter and a border guard of Iran had been killed in the border skirmish.
Following the criticism of Iranian media outlets, Jomhouri-e Eslami Newspaper in an editorial, wrote that Iran’s government should reconsider their relation with the Taliban. This daily warned the Taliban that “Iran has buried more savages than them and they are nothing”.
This newspaper, in addition to praising Ahmad Massoud, has described the threatening and mocking words about the Islamic Republic by figures close to the Taliban as "naive chanting by some people affiliated with this group".
This newspaper pointed to the threats and wrote, “Let them know that we have buried people more brutal than them, that was bloodthirsty- ISIS. They [Taliban] count as nothing.”
Although the Iranian authorities are trying to downplay the recent border tensions in order to reduce the tensions with the Taliban, domestic newspapers, especially the press close to the Iranian regime, have harshly criticised the Taliban's dealings with Iran.
Jomhouri-e Eslami Newspaper, criticising the Iranian government's policy towards the Taliban, called the recent tweet of Ahmed Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, as "sympathetic and wise”.
When the Iranian and Taliban border clash occurred on Saturday, Ahmad Massoud, quoted a poem of Rumi, and said he considered Iran's foreign policy to establish friendly relations with the Taliban as futile.
Like other domestic newspaper, Jomhouri-e Eslami also called the policy of close relationship with the Taliban as a mistake, including the handover of Afghanistan embassy to the group.
Masih Mohajeri, editor of this newspaper, is described as one of the conservative scholars of Iran.
