Taliban fighters promised to respect “women’s rights” in a new charm offensive, despite their horrid track record of allowing women and girls basic freedoms.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid held a news conference to say that the insurgents would honor women’s rights, within highly restrictive Sharia law. The militants urged women to return to school and work, and another Taliban spokesman granted a televised interview to a female journalist.
Mujahid also vowed to grant amnesty to Afghans who worked with the now-toppled government backed by the US.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan before 9/11, they prevented women and girls from leaving the house without a male chaperone, and did not allow them to work or receive an education.
“All the things the media says about us are not true. They are saying that we don’t know the international rules and laws,” a Taliban security chief who can only be identified as Malawi told Post reporter Hollie McKay in Mazar-i-Sharif this week.
“But we respect rights. We respect all rules and human rights.”
Insurgents also vowed Tuesday not to interfere with US-led evacuation efforts of Westerners and their Afghan allies, but were instead reported to be controlling the entrances of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and attacking those who were trying to flee.
“There was kids, women, babies, old women, they could barely walk,” an Afghan former State Department contractor told Fox News. “They [are in a] very, very bad situation, I’m telling you. At the end, I was thinking that there was like 10,000 or more than 10,000 people, and they’re running into the airport … The Taliban [were] beating people and the people were jumping from the fence, the concertina wire, and also the wall.”
Elsewhere in Kabul, Taliban fighters were recorded shooting guns as they patrolled neighborhoods that are home to activists and government workers, according to the report.
Militants were looking for people who had helped the US, and had questioned the former defense contractor’s neighbors about him, according to the report.
With AP wires