Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada on Friday (July 1) urged the world to stop “interfering” in Afghan affairs as he believed applying Islamic law was the key to his country’s success.
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Hibatullah Akhundzada, who has never been publicly filmed or photographed since the Taliban took power in August and normally lives in seclusion in Kandahar (south), their spiritual center, addressed a regime-convened gathering of religious leaders in Kabul to consolidate his power. “They tell us, ‘Why don’t you do that, why don’t you do that? Why does the world interfere in our affairs? We do not accept instructions from anyone in the world. We will only bow to Almighty Allah,'” he said in an hour-long speech broadcast by state radio. In particular, Michelle Bachelet, who visited Afghanistan briefly in March, “strongly encouraged” the Taliban “to work with predominantly Muslim countries that have experience in promoting the rights of women and girls – so that they are guaranteed by international law.” .
More than 3,000 religious and tribal leaders have gathered in the capital since Thursday for a three-day grand council. The first speeches mainly called for unity behind the regime. The press, which had no access rights, had speculated for several days about Hibatullah Akhundzada’s possible participation. Only audio recordings of him have been made public since August, without being able to be certified by an independent party. Despite his discretion, this mullah, a legal and religious specialist who would be in his 70s, holds an iron fist against the movement he led in 2016, according to analysts, and bears the title “Commander of the Faithful.” . He believed that the regime’s success would be based on its ability to break with “corruption, selfishness, tyranny, nationalism and nepotism” which he said have featured in successive governments over the past two decades since the Taliban previously came to power ( 1996-2001).
Women excluded from society
To achieve this, “now is the time to apply Sharia (Islamic law),” he said, asking the ulema to guide the authorities in this area. “If there is Sharia, we will have security, freedom, an Islamic system and everything we need,” he insisted in a monotonous tone. The gathering, the largest since the Taliban took power, comes a week after an earthquake hit the south-east of the country that killed more than 1,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless. No women were allowed to attend this gathering. The Taliban considered their presence unnecessary as they are represented by male relatives.
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A Taliban source told AFP earlier this week that participants would be allowed to criticize the regime and that sensitive issues such as girls’ education, a topic of debate within the movement itself, would be on the agenda. In late March, the Taliban closed high schools and colleges for girls, just hours after their long-heralded reopening. According to several sources within the movement, this unexpected reversal was ordered by Hibatullah Akhundzada himself. He did not mention this issue in his speech, which was mainly limited to urging believers to respect Islamic principles.
“There can be no reconciliation between Islam and the ”Kafirs””
The Taliban have largely returned to the extremely harsh interpretation of Islam that marked their first rise to power, severely restricting women’s rights. They almost completely barred them from public employment, restricted their right to travel and prevented girls from attending secondary schools. Women were also forced to wear a full veil covering the face on any outings in public. They also banned non-religious music, the depiction of human faces in advertisements, television broadcasts of films or series showing unveiled women, and required men to wear traditional clothing and grow their beards.
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Hibatullah Akhundzada warned his listeners that non-Muslim nations would never accept a truly Islamic state and therefore urged them to be prepared for many hardships. “There can be no reconciliation between Islam and the ‘Kafirs’ (infidels). It never happened, neither in the past nor now,” he said. “You have to fight, endure hardships… The current world will not easily accept that you implement the Islamic system and will not allow you to do so,” he said. The Taliban surrounded this gathering with strong security measures. But on Thursday, two gunmen managed to get close to the meeting place at Kabul Polytechnic University before they were shot dead. Returning to power after 20 years of guerrilla warfare against the elected government and foreign forces, the fundamentalists vowed to be more flexible this time. But they soon broke their promises.
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