The Taliban’s co-founder returned to Afghanistan Tuesday following the group’s stunning takeover of the country, as a top spokesman declared a general amnesty and insisted the insurgents would not seek “revenge”.
Earlier in the day, the insurgents told government staff to return to work — though residents reacted cautiously and few women took to the streets.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar’s arrival from Qatar — where he has spent months leading talks with the United States and then Afghan peace negotiators — crowns a stunning comeback for the Taliban after being ousted 20 years ago.
Tens of thousands of people have tried to flee the country to escape the hardline Islamist rule expected under the Taliban, or fearing direct retribution for siding with the US-backed government that ruled for the past two decades.
But Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters the new government would be “positively different” from their 1996-2001 regime, infamous for deaths by stoning and barring women from working in contact with men.
“If the question is based on ideology, and beliefs, there is no difference… but if we calculate it based on experience, maturity, and insight, no doubt there are many differences,” Mujahid told reporters.
“All those in the opposite side are pardoned from A to Z,” he said. “We will not seek revenge.”
Mujahid said a government would soon be formed but offered few details other than to say the Taliban would “connect with all sides”.
He also said they were “committed to letting women work in accordance with the principles of Islam”, without offering specifics.
A spokesman for the group’s political office in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, told Britain’s Sky News that women would not be required to wear the all-covering burqa, but did not say what attire would be deemed acceptable.
– Triumphant return –
Baradar, now deputy leader of the Taliban, chose to touch down in Afghanistan’s second biggest city Kandahar — the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace and capital during their first time in power.
He landed hours after evacuation flights from Kabul’s airport resumed Tuesday.
On Monday, chaos erupted when huge crowds mobbed the tarmac, with some people so desperate they clung to the fuselage of a US military plane as it rolled down the runway for take-off.
The United States has authorised the deployment of 6,000 troops to ensure the safe evacuation of embassy staff, as well as Afghans who worked as interpreters or in other support roles.
More than half of that number were already in place, a White House official said Tuesday.
Other governments, including France, Germany and Australia, have also organised charter flights.
But Washington has come under sharp criticism for its handling of the evacuations.
“The images of desperation at Kabul airport are shameful for the political West,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
– ‘The fear is there’ –
The Taliban took effective control of the country on Sunday when president Ashraf Ghani fled and the insurgents walked into Kabul with no opposition.
It capped a staggeringly fast rout of Afghanistan’s major cities in just 10 days, achieved with relatively little bloodshed, following two decades of war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
The collapse came after US President Joe Biden withdrew American troops, under the false belief that the Afghan army — with billions of dollars in US funding and training — was strong enough to withstand the Taliban.
US-led forces had invaded the country following the September 11 attacks in 2001, in response to the Taliban giving sanctuary to Al-Qaeda, and toppled them.
Now that the Taliban are back in power, they have sought to project an air of restraint and moderation, including by announcing a “general amnesty” for government workers on Tuesday.
“Those working in any part or department of the government should resume their duties with full satisfaction and continue their duties without any fear,” a Taliban statement said.
A Taliban official gave an interview to a female journalist on an Afghan news channel, and a girls’ school reopened in the western city of Herat.
In Kabul, some shops reopened as traffic police were back on the streets, but schools and universities remained closed, few women openly took to the streets and men had shed their Western clothes for traditional garb.
“The fear is there,” said a shopkeeper who asked not to be named after opening his small neighbourhood provisions store.
– Biden defends exit –
In his first comments since the Taliban victory, Biden admitted Monday their advance had unfolded more quickly than expected.
But he heaped criticism on Ghani’s government, insisted he had no regrets, and emphasised US troops could not defend a nation whose leaders “gave up and fled”.
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Biden said at the White House.
On Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also blamed Afghan leaders for the “tragedy”, saying they had “failed to stand up to the Taliban and to achieve the peaceful solution that Afghans desperately wanted”.
– Russia hails ‘positive’ meeting –
Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov met with the Taliban in Kabul, hailing on state television a “positive and constructive” meeting.
“They are currently engaged in restoring order in the city and have succeeded in this,” Zhirnov said in an interview from Kabul with Rossiya 24.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday the bloc would “have to talk” to the Taliban.
But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would not recognise a Taliban government.
