Blinken: Taliban ‘Grossly’ Violated Doha Agreement by Sheltering al-Qaeda Leader
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday accused the Taliban of “grossly” violating the Doha Agreement by hosting and sheltering al Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul.
Blinken said the Taliban defied “repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries.”
The secretary of state’s comments come after the U.S. killed al-Zawahiri in a strike in Afghanistan over the weekend. The New York Times initially reported that the house involved in the strike was owned by a top aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior official in the Taliban government. That information, which was attributed to an American analyst, was removed without an editor’s note.
“In the face of the Taliban’s unwillingness or inability to abide by their commitments, we will continue to support the Afghan people with robust humanitarian assistance and to advocate for the protection of their human rights, especially of women and girls,” Blinken said in a statement.
President Biden announced Monday that the U.S. successfully concluded a “rigorously planned” air strike on Saturday killing al-Zawahiri with no civilian casualties.
“For decades, he was the mastermind behind the attacks on Americans, including the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens more. He played a key role in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and wounding over 4,500 others,” Biden said of the al-Qaeda leader who was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list after 9/11 with a reward of $25 million for information leading to his arrest.
Al-Zawahiri, who orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks with Osama bin Laden, became leader of al-Qaeda after U.S. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in 2011.
The Trump administration entered into the Doha agreement with the Taliban in February 2020. Under the terms of the deal, the administration agreed to release some 5,000 jihadist prisoners, many of whom held leadership positions with al-Qaeda, and committed to withdrawing all NATO troops from Afghanistan provided certain conditions were met, chief among them that the Taliban stopped sheltering terrorists in Afghanistan. The Trump administration was criticized at the time for excluding the Afghan government from negotiations.
Blinken’s statement decrying the Taliban for its role in sheltering the terrorist leader comes one year after Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reaffirmed that the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacking other countries.
As the Taliban quickly took over Afghanistan last year, it worked to reform its image and convince the public that it is more moderate now than when it imposed strict Islamic rule in the late ’90s.
The White House said shortly before the Taliban completed its takeover last summer that the group “has to make an assessment about what they want their role to be in the international community.”
The White House called for peace talks at the time and falsely hoped that diplomatic consequences would keep the Taliban on its best behavior.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad warned the Taliban then that it would face isolation if they took power through violence. Then- White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Khalilzad made clear “that the international community is going to watch closely how the Taliban behaves.”
