Why Taliban should be given chance to govern Afghanistan – Ishaq Akintola

Islamic human rights organisation, Muslim Rights Concern, has said the Taliban should be given a chance to govern chaos-torn Afghanistan after President Ashraf Ghani fled the landlocked Asian country on Sunday, abandoning the presidential palace to Taliban fighters.

According to him, the Taliban has learnt its lessons and be allowed to govern Afghanistan in as much as it would not walk the path of extremism and terrorism as it did 20 years ago before its dethronement by US forces.

The Professor of Islamic Eschatology at the Lagos State University also alleged that the United States deceived and used some Afghans to gain ground in the country, achieve its “nationalistic aim” of axing some Taliban leaders including Osama bin Laden and then abandon the locals.

On Sunday, Taliban militants retook Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, about two decades after they were driven from Kabul by US troops. Before then, Taliban militants seized about 20 cities in the country following the withdrawal of US troops beginning in early July.

Sunday’s takeover of Kabul saw the civilian government led by President Ghani fleeing the country, saying that the Taliban have won, adding that he left to avoid bloodshed.

Formed in 1994, the Taliban were made up of ex-Afghan resistance fighters, known collectively as the Mujahedeen, who fought the invading Soviet forces in the 1980s. They imposed their interpretation of Islamic law on the country and resisted foreign influence.

The Taliban first captured Kabul in 1996 and the Sunni Islamist organization mandated women to wear head-to-toe coverings, women were also not allowed to study or work and were forbidden from travelling alone.

On September 11, 2001, 19 Taliban fighters hijacked four commercial planes in the US, crashing two into the World Trade Center towers, amongst other places. Over 2,500 people were killed in the attacks, according to CNN.

Speaking on Monday, incumbent US President Joe Biden said he stood by his decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, adding that the troops cannot be dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight themselves.

Biden also stressed that the objective of the US under the then government of President George Bush had been fulfilled.

“We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and we got him,” he stated at a presidential address on Monday.