ISLAMABAD –
A three-day assembly of Islamic clerics and tribal elders in the Afghan capital concluded Saturday with pledges of support for the Taliban and calls on the international community to recognize the country’s Taliban-led government.
The meeting in Kabul was patterned along the lines of Afghanistan’s traditional Loya Jirgas: regular councils of elders, leaders and prominent figures set up to deliberate on issues of Afghan politics.
But the vast majority of attendees were Taliban officials and supporters, mostly Islamic clerics. Women were not allowed to attend, unlike the last Loya Jirga that was held under the previous US-backed government.
The former insurgents, who have maintained full control over decision-making since they took over the country last August, promoted the meeting as a forum on the problems facing Afghanistan.
According to Mujib-ul Rahman Ansari, a cleric who attended the meeting, an 11-point statement issued at the end urges countries in the region and the world, the United Nations, Islamic organizations and others to recognize an Afghanistan led by the Taliban, remove all sanctions imposed since the Taliban took power, and unfreeze Afghan assets abroad.
Ansari said more than 4,500 Islamic clerics and elders in attendance renewed their allegiance to the Taliban’s supreme leader and spiritual head, Haibatullah Akhundzada.
In a surprising development, the reclusive Akhundzada arrived in Kabul from his base in the southern province of Kandahar and addressed the meeting on Friday. It was believed to be his first visit to the Afghan capital since the Taliban took power.
In his hour-long speech broadcast on state radio, Akhundzada called the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan a “victory for the Muslim world.”
His appearance added symbolic weight to the meeting. The Taliban are under international pressure to be more inclusive as they grapple with the humanitarian crises in Afghanistan.
The international community has been wary of any recognition or cooperation with the Taliban, especially after they curtailed the rights of women and minorities, measures dating back to their harsh rule when they were last in power in the late 1990s. 1990.
Saturday’s 11-point resolution called on the Taliban government to pay “particular attention and guarantee justice, religious and modern education, health, agriculture, industry, the rights of minorities, children, women and all nation, in accordance with holy Islamic law”. “The Taliban adhere to their own strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
On Friday, Akhundzada, who went from a low-profile member of the Islamic insurgent movement to leader of the Taliban in a swift transition of power after a 2016 US drone strike killed his predecessor Mullah Akhtar Mansour , also offered prayers for the Afghanistan earthquake. victims
June’s powerful earthquake killed more than 1,000 people in eastern Afghanistan, sparking yet another crisis for the struggling country. Overwhelmed aid groups already keeping millions of Afghans alive sent supplies to quake victims, but most countries responded lukewarmly to the Taliban’s calls for international aid.
The meeting in Kabul also referred to the Taliban’s main rivals, the Islamic State militant group, and appealed to Afghans across the country, saying “any kind of cooperation” with the Islamic State was prohibited.
On Thursday, at the beginning of the meeting, shots were heard near the heavily guarded meeting place, the Loya Jirga Hall of the Kabul Polytechnic University. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid later told reporters that security forces shot someone suspected of having a hand grenade, but “there is nothing to worry about.”
However, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. He said in a statement that three of his fighters climbed onto the roof of a building near the meeting and released a video showing a group of heavily armed men, their faces covered, who they say have “taken up positions very close to the meeting” and are awaiting orders to attack.
IS’s affiliate in Afghanistan, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province or ISIS-K, has been operating since 2014. Since the Taliban’s takeover, ISIS militants have carried out numerous attacks against the Afghanistan’s new rulers and the Taliban have launched a wide-ranging campaign against ISIS in the country’s stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.
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Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.