In a new video, Taliban denounce West, Afghan governments

Denouncing the efforts of the Afghanistan government and the West to integrate Taliban into the government, the extremist group has released a video eulogizing Jihad and the Islamic Emirate, which they had established in Afghanistan in 1996, few years before 9/11.

In the video, titled ‘Real men 4’, the Taliban denounced “deviants … who are trained in the poisonous deviant beliefs of atheism, communism, secularism, democracy, and other satanic western and disbelieving ideologies.”

The video is seen as a message that the Taliban will not compromise with the Afghan government, which the group earlier defined as illegitimate, impotent and un-Islamic, and “the only acceptable government is its own Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with its emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada at the helm.”

It shows Afghan political leaders, musicians and entertainers with a voice-over saying, “But the Deviants are those who are trained in the poisonous deviant beliefs of atheism, communism, secularism, democracy, and other satanic western and disbelieving ideologies in order to mislead the Muslims with their deviant ideologies.”

On June 8, the US peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and US General Scott Miller, the commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, had met the Taliban’s deputy leader Mullah Baradar in Doha.

“Both sides talked about (the) speedy release of the prisoners and commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations,” Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman had tweeted.

But a segment of the video indicates something different. In the video, Afghan officials and military officers are shown alongside American leaders, including President Donald Trump and Miller, with the commentary describing American officials as “invaders” and “disbelievers.”

The jihadist group has been very clear over the past two decades that the only acceptable form of government in Afghanistan is an ‘Islamic system’ that is to be ruled by the Taliban’s government.