Afghanistan: “Death to Pakistan”, chant angry Afghans in Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharief

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Amid the Taliban’s announcement that it will not let any other country, including Pakistan, interfere in the country’s affairs, hundreds of Afghans, including women and children, took out rallies in the national capital of Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharief on Monday, protesting against the Islamic militia, Islamabad, and in support of the resistance groups in the northern provinces.

The Afghans took to the streets to protest against the Taliban rule and to support the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA) led by Ahmad Massoud, according to an Al Arabiya report.

Videos going viral on the social media platforms showed crowds chanting “Death to Taliban, Death to Pakistan, Long live Afghanistan” as people marched in the dark streets on Monday.

Earlier, the Taliban had claimed it had captured the NRFA-controlled Panjshir province, the last stronghold of the anti-Taliban movement mobilized under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud, the son of the slain hero of the anti-Soviet resistance Ahmad Shah Massoud. The NRFA had quickly denied the Taliban claims.

Ahmad Massoud, the 32-year-old London-educated leader, released an audio message appealing for a “national uprising” against the Taliban rule.

“We request other brothers and sisters, wherever you are and with whatever means you are capable of, to rise up and resist against the imposition of a servile and subjugated future in Afghanistan,” he said.

Ahmad accused the Taliban of using “foreign mercenaries”, without naming a specific country.

But the slogans raised by the protesters, including “Death to Pakistan”, revealed what he meant.

The US has long accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban; a charge Islamabad denies, Al Arabiya reported.

Pakistan’s ISI chief Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed had flown into Kabul unannounced on September 4, raising concerns of the Afghans about Islamabad’s designs in their country.

Islamabad is concerned that the Taliban might unleash the 2,500-odd terrorists of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), recently released from Afghan jails, to launch terror attacks inside Pakistan.

The Taliban, which came to control Kabul on August 15, has been trying to form a government, amid reports of pushes and pulls of conflicting interests of the ethnic groups comprising the Islamist militia.