WOMEN IN TALI-RALLY
‘Satisfied with our rights’
Hundreds of women clad head-to-toe in black niqabs rallied at Kabul University Saturday in a propaganda demonstration where they claimed they were “satisfied” with “women’s rights” under the Taliban.
Many of the Afghan women waved white Taliban flags as speakers railed against the West during the event.
They carried signs saying “Our rights are safe in Islam” and “We are satisfied with attitude and behavior of Mujahedeens.”
The Islamists have promised more permissive policies toward women than when they last ruled the country, but it remains to be seen how that translates in practice.
The rally stood in stark contrast to recent protests by local women demanding more rights, where armed Taliban fighters fired bullets over their heads to silence them.
The Taliban marked the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks by flying their flag over Afghanistan’s presidential palace on Saturday.
The move is a final stick in the eye to the US, whose harried withdrawal from the country last month has come in for domestic and international criticism. A terrorist attack in the closing days of the US occupation left 13 Americans and 169 Afghans dead.
The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by the al Qaeda terrorist network, which had been allowed to freely operate in the country under the Taliban’s previous rule.
US military brass has warned Afghanistan could once again become a haven for terrorism.
Taliban forces have continued their consolidation of control throughout the country, shooting and killing a significant opposition leader and his driver while their car was stopped at a checkpoint.
Rohullah Azizi, a brother of former Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh, had led resistance forces in Panjshir province. The last anti-Taliban stronghold in the country fell to the Islamists earlier this week.
“As we hear at the moment Taliban shot him and his driver at the checkpoint,” Azizi’s nephew, Shuresh Saleh, told the AP.
A group of Taliban fighters also beheaded an Afghan soldier in a grisly video that showed them celebrating while yelling “God is Great.”