:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/HPAEWZO5LBBL3L2DEH6GW42VGQ.jpg "Taliban demand UN exclusion of their leaders from Terrorist black list")
The Taliban demanded on Thursday the exclusion of their leaders from the UN and United States blacklists, while condemning the comments that have been made against members of the new Afghan government.
“We urge that these incorrect policies are immediately reversed through diplomatic interactions,” demanded in a statement the Government of the Taliban, which seized power in the country on August 15 with the conquest of Kabul.
More than a dozen members of the new cabinet of the Interim Government of the Taliban, are on the UN Security Council blacklist of terrorists, many of them with arrest warrants by US agencies.
Among them stands out Sirajuddin Haqqani, on whom a reward of 10 million dollars from the US authorities weighs for information that helps his capture, and who was appointed this week as the new Minister of the Interior.
Sirajuddin, 48, is the head of one of the most feared insurgent groups in Afghanistan: the Haqqani network, founded by his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, to fight the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and behind some of the bloodiest attacks committed on Afghan territory.
The Haqqani network, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, was associated with the Taliban when the Islamist group came to power in 1996.
“Pentagon officials have commented that some members of the Islamic Emirate cabinet (as the Taliban call themselves) or members of the late Haqqani’s family are blacklisted by the United States and remain targeted,” he stressed.
For the Taliban, “this position is a clear violation of the Doha agreement that does not benefit either the United States or Afghanistan,” he indicated in reference to the pact signed in February 2020 between Washington and the Islamists with which the withdrawal of international troops from the Asian country.
For the Taliban, “The Honorable Haqqani’s family is part of the Islamic Emirate and does not have a separate name or organizational structure,” the spokesman said in the statement.
“Similarly, in the Doha agreement, all officials of the Islamic Emirate without exception were part of the interaction with the US and should have been removed from the UN and US blacklists, a demand that it is still valid,” he remarked.
ABOUT 15 CABINET MEMBERS ON THE BLACK LIST
A former Afghan government official told Efe on condition of anonymity that around 15 members of the new Taliban cabinet are blacklisted by the UN and the United States.
“They are not only a threat to the security of Afghanistan, but also to the security of the region and the countries of the world,” said the source, who assured that in addition to Sirajuddin Haqqani, and his uncle and Minister of Refugees, Khalil Haqqani; the top Taliban official and new acting prime minister, Mullah Hassan Akhund.
The cabinet’s appointment sparked criticism from the international community that questioned not only the presence of hard-core leaders of the movement, but also the power handed over to individuals considered terrorist threats.
“The Islamic Emirate condemns in the strongest terms that the United States and other countries are making such provocative statements and trying to meddle in the internal affairs of Afghanistan,” the Taliban ruled in the letter.