The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan on Monday said they supported the brutal slaughter of Israeli women and children perpetrated by Hamas terrorists, but denied a rumor that its fighters want to join forces and attack Jerusalem.
The so-called “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” rushed out a statement in support of the Hamas atrocities on Saturday, while the blood of innocents was still being spilled:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is carefully monitoring the recent events in Gaza Strip and considers the occurrence of such incidents to be the result of Israeli Zionists trampling the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation and repeated insults and disrespect to Muslim holy places.
The Islamic Emirate considers every kind of defense and resistance of the people of Palestine for the freedom of the land and the holy places to be their legitimate right.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan declares its support for the legitimate, historical, and legal right of the Palestinian people to have an independent state in the historical land of Palestinians and calls on the Islamic countries, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the international community, and especially the influential countries in the region, to prevent the violence of the Israeli occupying forces against the innocent people of Palestine and to solve the Palestinian issue on the basis of granting the legitimate rights of the Palestinians.
A post began circulating on Twitter on Saturday that ostensibly came from the “Taliban Public Relations Department.” The account later changed its name to #FreePalestine. The post said the Taliban asked permission from Iran, Iraq, and Jordan for its fighters to transit their territory so they could link up with Hamas fighters in the “Holy Land” and attack Jerusalem:
This evening, the foreign office contacted his counterparts in #Iran, Iraq and Jordan, asking for permission for our men to cross their sovereign territory on their way to the holy land. We are preparing and hoping for the good news from our neighbours.#Gaza #Israel #Palestine pic.twitter.com/ZuHTMeQc7q
— #FreePalestine 🇵🇸 (@TalibanPRD__) October 7, 2023
Taliban officials on Monday claimed the post was “inaccurate,” although they do not seem to have challenged its provenance as an alleged product of the genuine Taliban P.R. department.
Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar – where the mass murderers of Hamas are also headquartered – told journalists the message on Twitter was “not correct.”
“These are rumors, not confirmed news,” Shaheen said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Voice of America News (VOA) that the Taliban’s position has not changed since the statement issued on Saturday, which is not much of a clarification, since that statement was full of belligerent chest-thumping about the Palestinians’ “right” to commit rape and murder, but did not say anything about whether the Taliban wants to help them do it or not.
As VOA pointed out, Hamas was an early supporter of the Taliban regime after President Joe Biden handed over control of Afghanistan in his disastrous August 2021 withdrawal, so it would not be surprising if some Taliban fighters were eager to join Hamas in the slaughter of innocents.
Some analysts maintained, however, that the Taliban would rather support Hamas tacitly since a military deployment would violate the Qatar-brokered deal that created the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and might cost Kabul what little humanitarian aid it still receives.
Sher Jan Ahmadzai, director of Afghanistan studies at the University of Nebraska, suggested “groups of Taliban fighters who believe in global jihad” might make their way to Gaza, but the Taliban government was unlikely to announce an official deployment of troops.
“I just don’t know if they have the resources to really add anything to Hamas other than vocal support,” mused research professor Thomas Johnson of the National Security Affairs Department at Naval Postgraduate School.
An Israeli military commander said in June that Palestinian militants have been spotted with American small arms that were abandoned in Afghanistan by Biden.
The Taliban seized an immense cache of American military equipment during Biden’s withdrawal and have reportedly been both using and selling the weapons. In March, the Pakistani government complained that terrorists from Tehreek-e-Taliban, the “Pakistani Taliban,” have been using Biden guns to attack Pakistani border outposts.
Rumors have swirled since Saturday’s attack that some of the Hamas terrorists were armed with American guns, obtained from either Afghanistan or Ukraine but, as of Tuesday, there has been no official confirmation from either the U.S. or Israeli governments.
One permutation of the American guns rumor, put forward in a Ukrainian intelligence report, is that Russia seized American weapons from slain Ukrainian soldiers and gave the guns to Hamas, in the hope of framing Ukraine as the supplier.
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