Taliban frown on militants’ ceasefire selfies

PESHAWAR: The Afghan Taliban are angry at their members swopping selfies with soldiers and government officials during their three-day ceasefire, a senior Taliban official said yesterday, after the militants roamed at will through cities before the truce ended.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Taliban official also said Pakistan had wanted the Taliban to include US and other foreign troops in the ceasefire.

However, the Taliban’s leadership and supreme commander, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhunzada, did not agree.

“Last night, an emergency meeting was called and all the commanders were informed and directed to take strict disciplinary action against all those Taliban members who visited citizens and took pictures with the Afghan authorities,” he said.

Some Taliban seen taking selfies with Afghan government forces and officials had been warned, the Taliban official said.

Both the Afghan government and the militants declared temporary ceasefires for the end-of-Ramadaan Eid al-Fitr holiday, leading to fraternisation between the two sides as militants emerged from their hideouts to enter towns and cities.

The government ceasefire did not include the Islamic State militant group and the Taliban did not include US-led foreign forces in theirs.

The Taliban ceasefire ended on Sunday. The government extended its ceasefire with the Taliban, which had been due to end tomorrow, by 10 days.

Another Taliban commander, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said some attacks had been planned in the southern Afghan province of Helmand where short clashes were reported, according to the spokesperson for the Helmand governor.

Anti-war activists set off on a peace march last month, spending the fasting month crossing harsh, sun-baked countryside en route to Kabul where they arrived yesterday, their numbers swelling and ebbing at different points along the route.

Abdul Rahman Mangal, spokesperson for the Maidan Wardak provincial government, next to Kabul, said the Taliban attacked two security checkpoints in the Saidabad district in the early hours of yesterday which “left casualties”.

Clashes were also reported in Faryab in the north west and Laghman, to the east of Kabul, and Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan and the scene of two bomb blasts over the weekend, one of which was claimed by Islamic State.

While many war-weary Afghans welcomed the ceasefires and the fraternisation between the combatants, some criticised the government ceasefire, which allowed the Taliban to flow into cities, though the militants said they were withdrawing.

The Taliban are fighting US-led Nato forces combined under the Resolute Support mission, and Ghani’s US-backed government to restore sharia, or Islamic law, after their ousting by US.-led forces in 2001.

But Afghanistan has been at war for four decades, ever since the Soviet invasion in 1979.