Trump's Secretary of State Is Senator Who Supported Designation of Taliban As Terror Group

Waltz has served in the US Army and National Guard for 27 years and has a history of fighting the Taliban.

He currently represents Florida in the US House of Representatives and is a prominent supporter of Donald Trump.

Mike Waltz, 50, has published his military and political experiences in a book titled "The Warrior Diplomat: The Battles of a Green Helmet: From Washington to Afghanistan."

Waltz has been a critic of the Biden administration's handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, describing the process as "shameful”.

He also told a congressional hearing in October last year that the Taliban had continued to kill and harass former Afghan soldiers.

In February last year, during a congressional hearing called by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US soldier criticised the former US envoy for Afghanistan peace who had said that the Taliban had succeeded in containing al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Waltz said that "relying on one terrorist group to destroy another terrorist group is dangerous and a big mistake".

Referring to the Taliban's punishment of Afghan citizens, Waltz said in December 2022 that women in Afghanistan have been oppressed, children have been radicalised, and another generation of terrorists is being recruited to attack the United States.

The US official told Fox News in September last year that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, with the help of the Taliban government and US equipment, is once again reviving and realising bin Laden's "dream". Mike Waltz added that US troops will have to return to Afghanistan in the future and fight terrorism. "But not a single official in Joe Biden's administration resigned or was fired," he sarcastically wrote in a note on social media platform X.

Waltz is also a vocal critic of China and Beijing's activities in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he called on Joe Biden to provide Ukraine with more weapons.

The US National Security Adviser is a powerful official in the US government who, unlike many senior government positions in the United States, does not require Senate confirmation.

According to Israel's Kan network, Simintov went to Türkiye after the Taliban came to power, and after living there for three years, he finally arrived in Israel on Monday.

Simintov, who was forced to leave Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, in an exclusive interview with Kan 11, said that he was in danger every day and had taken care of the only synagogue in Kabul for a long time, but after the Taliban takeover, he had no choice but to leave Afghanistan.

Simintov was shifted to Türkiye with the support of an American Jewish man named Mordechai Kahana, where he remained for three years. During this time, he continued to look for an opportunity to immigrate to the United States, but encountered administrative problems.

In the interview, he also spoke of his desire to go to Israel to visit his friends.

The Jewish Agency, which facilitated Simintov's immigration to Israel, declined to comment on the details of the case, saying that it could not comment on his specific situation.

Khanjani met a number of politicians, including Abdul Rashid Dostum, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Rasul Sayyaf, and Atta Mohammad Noor, in Türkiye.

Khanjani is called the second in command of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, whose responsibility is to coordinate the political leaders opposed to the Taliban.

He said that during these meetings, he emphasised on the formation of a single front to fight the Taliban and shared a "first-hand assessment" of the situation in Afghanistan with these leaders.

According to the assessment of the political head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, the rift between the Taliban and the people is increasing day by day, and the attacks of opposition groups are increasing and the ground for change is gradually being prepared.

In these meetings, Khanjani stressed on the need to bring together Afghan leaders.

The organisation wrote that the prisoner had been sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic's judiciary on drug charges.

The Hengaw Human Rights Organisation wrote in a report that the Islamic Republic authorities carried out the death sentence of Mohammad Nabi, a Baluch citizen of Afghanistan, at the Zahedan Central Prison on the morning of Sunday, November 10.

The human rights organisation added that Mohammad Nabi was 28 years old and a resident of Zabul city. According to Hengaw, he was arrested two years ago on drug-related charges and sentenced to death.

The organisation also announced that he had been transferred to solitary confinement two days ago and had visited his family for the last time.

So far, the Islamic Republic has not officially published a report on the execution of this sentence.

Iran continues to carry out executions of prisoners despite strong opposition from international human rights organisations.

The embassy added that despite the disruptions, it would continue to provide consular services to Afghans living in Australia "with strength and stability”.

The Afghan embassy in Canberra said in a statement on Monday (November 11) that the Taliban continues to harass the Afghan people, even outside Afghanistan's borders, due to their lack of internal and external legitimacy and seek to create new challenges for Afghans living in other countries.

The statement did not explain exactly how the Taliban had disrupted the consular services of the Afghan embassy in Australia. However, the Taliban's Foreign Ministry had previously announced that except for consulates that interact with the ministry, consular documents of other Afghan diplomatic missions are not valid.

The Taliban's Foreign Ministry has not responded to the new statement from the Afghan embassy in Australia.

"We assure our Afghan compatriots in Australia that the consular activities of this embassy will continue without any interruption and that its staff will be vigorously and steadfastly engaged in providing consular services and addressing the concerns of our compatriots," the statement said.