Taliban militant leader urges US to end Afghan ‘occupation’

Haibatullah Akhundzada, the new leader of the Taliban militant group, is seen in an undated photograph released on May 25, 2016. ©Reuters

The new leader of the Taliban militant group has called on the US to end its “occupation” of Afghanistan as foreign forces are still present in the country 15 years after Washington launched its so-called war on terror.
“Admit the realities instead of useless use of force and muscle ... and put an end to the occupation,” Akhundzada said on Saturday in his first message since being appointed the Taliban leader.
He also noted that the Afghan nation stands firm against invaders, stressing that Afghans “neither fear ... your force nor your stratagem.”
The Taliban chief further warned those supporting invaders that they are following suit of “those abhorrent faces who … supported the Britons and the Soviets” in the past.
Elsewhere in his comments, Akhundzada raised the possibility of an agreement with the Afghan government if Kabul renounced what he called its foreign allies.
The Taliban planned to create an independent and united country, he said.

Afghan security personnel gather near the wreckage of buses, which were carrying police cadets, at the site of a bomb attack on the outskirts of Kabul on June 30, 2016. ©AFP

Akhundzada was picked as the Taliban’s leader, when former ringleader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in an American drone attack in a remote border area inside Pakistan on May 21.
The Taliban has seen a string of defections ever since the news about the death of Mullah Omar, Mansour’s predecessor, broke in late July 2015. Mullah Omar died at a hospital in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi in April 2013, but his death was kept secret for two years.
Afghanistan faces a security challenge years after the United States and its allies invaded the Asian state in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror.
The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but many areas in the country are still beset with bomb attacks, kidnapping incidents and murders.