Yesterday the Taliban (or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as its leaders prefer to be called) issued a statement on the 10-year anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The statement, reprinted in full below, was published at the Taliban’s Voice of Jihad website. Yesterday’s statement echoes another released by the Taliban just one day prior to the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack. In that statement, the Taliban claimed that “Afghans have an endless stamina for a long war,” and promised to continue fighting until US and NATO forces leave the country.
Statement of Islamic Emirate marking the 10th year of American occupation of Afghanistan
Exactly ten years from today on the 7th of October 2001, the arrogant American colonialists once again stepped on all Human Right conventions and norms, threw behind all respected principles for human freedoms and state sovereignty and attacked the independent soil of Afghanistan with full inhumanity.
Afghanistan has now reached its 10th year of occupation. A lot of the realities which were cloaked with propaganda of the western media ten years ago have now been exposed. America, with its criminal and colonial policies, proved in the last ten years of its occupation that its slogans under the names of democracy, assistance, peace keeping and fighting terrorism in order to meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations are nothing more than means for furthering their exploitative and colonial agendas. American invaders who see themselves as international standard bearers of peace have demonstrated through their ten years of occupation that in reality, they are the most self-absorbed, oppressive and cruel people towards the entire humanity who will not withhold from committing any crime and oppression to further their colonial agendas.
One the one hand, America has deprived Afghanistan of a legal Islamic government for the past ten years while on the other hand, it has also stripped the nation from the blessings of peace, security and safety. The nation has been damaged and suppressed from physical, spiritual, moral, ideological, educational and economical side also. The self-interested invaders have put all the gun-wielding, immoral, corrupt and hireling intelligence officials who were rejected and exiled by the people, as rulers over the honored Afghan nation.
With the occupation of Afghanistan by the Americans, the Afghan people under the leadership of Islamic Emirate simultaneously showed zeal for their obligatory Jihad against the invaders and practically presented themselves for the struggle. The past ten years have also been edifying in terms of Jihadi achievements, enemy losses, divine victory and Mujahideen accomplishments.
All praise is due to Allah, Mujahideen of Islamic Emirate, with strong determination and reliance on Allah kept alive their Jihadic struggle against the enemy even with scarce weapons and equipment, steadily increased their Jihadi operations, used different tactics against the enemy and gave innumerable sacrifices which in the end forced the occupiers, who intended to stay forever to rethink their position and contemplate turning back and leaving this soil.
Now that ten years have passed since the invasion of the arrogant Americans, fundamental changes have occurred in state of affairs, military tactics, stratagems and public opinion. And on international level, nations and people who take into account realities believe that the prolongation of presence of American troops in Afghanistan will add nothing to the end result except more expenditure, failures and humiliation.
With the passing of the ten year proud Jihad by the Afghan people against the invaders, we must remind it that divine victory is with us alike the previous ten years. If we hold tightly onto the rope of Allah, avoid insincerity, dissention, hypocrisy an other illnesses than with the aid of Allah, our enemy will be forced to completely leave our country, if God willing.
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31 Comments
This is laughable. I served 5 years as a Force Recon Marine (1st Force Reconnaissance Co) (15th MEU) with service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban weren’t winning when I was “in country” and they sure as heck aren’t winning now…they are surviving, but that’s not winning. The US Military has killed tens of thousands of Taliban militants and leaders over the past 10 years, and the surge allowed us to deny them their safe havens. Now they (with the help of the backstabbing Pakis) are conducting a campaign of high level assassinations, doing what groups like the IRA used to do. We need to stick with the mission and particularly go after the haqqauni’s and Mullah Omar in Pakistan. and we need to show the Pakistani’s why we are history’s foremost superpower and get them to either help us or we cut their aid to zero. As for the Taliban they can “claim” whatever they like, meanwhile our troops will keep on killing them by the hundreds every month.
Oh lord.
It’s gonna be another “divine victory” just like the one they were going to have in Iraq once the Anbar tribes abandoned them.
With “divine victories” like those,we can only hope they have more of them.
The Taliban are a spent force. They ceased mattering quite a few years ago. What has since surfaced in their wake isn’t much better if at all. The Afghans know this ‘new’ group for what it is & have responded appropriately. If any place is in trouble it’s Pakistan & every week or so another ‘stitch’ comes undone.
devin, im sorry but NATO got owned by a group of 25000-35000 men with light weapons, they managed to outlast the best army in the world, and they also dont have high technological equipment as your army did and they still manage to control some parts of Afghanistan. This war is a faliure, you know, i know it, and everyone out there knos it.
I bet sketchbag or scumbag has links to Pakistan the true enemy in Afghanistan!
I disagree with Mike Merlo’s statement. In fact, it is the reverse. The Taliban stopped mattering once the U.S. shattered them with a special ops/bombing campaign from 2001-2005. Once 2006 came, they regrouped and by 2008 they were a massive armed force that had essentially rearmed, regrouped and pushed back, spreading into new territories and waging an aggressive propaganda media campaign.
If the Taliban ceased to matter, as of now, we wouldn’t need approx. 130,000 NATO soldiers “in country” fighting them as we speak. So they obviously matter, military, as well as politically. They matter politically because the Afghan government and NATO/Washington have made several (failed) efforts to talk to them.
The Taliban we are fighting today may be different from the Taliban we fought in 2001-2005, but they *are* the same entity at the end of the day. And until we cut the head off the snake so to speak, that entity will continue to be a growing thorn in our side.
Bill,
The Taliban have released a PDF file for the statistics of September 2011.
In it, they claimed they killed 1150 NATO troops, and 1326 Afghan government forces, along with 1 facility destroyed and 343 vehicles destroyed.
831 Jihadist operations took place across the country, while only 84 Taliban were martyred in the operations of NATO and Afghan troops.
So if anyone is perplexed when I post statements from the Taliban on certain attacks and incidents, read over the PDF file and you’ll see where I get my stuff from.
http://theunjustmedia.com/Afghanistan/Mujahideen%20operations/sept11/IEA_sep_2011.pdf
The illiterate Taliban may not understand it, but their backers, the educated Muslims of Pakistan
One can forgive them for believing this for multiple reasons:
–ISAF has not made nearly enough progress in the last decade as they could have.
–If 2014 is the real deadline, that too does not allow ISAF the time to achieve an outright victory.
–Pakistan hasn’t budged an inch from its State/Army policy of using the Taliban and other terror groups to achieve its goals.
–The US appears confounded by the latter.
–Reconciliation/peace talks have not been initiated at the Taliban’s request.
–US and Western peoples, in general, are suffering from war fatigue, exacerbated by difficult economic conditions.
Think of it, what do we have going for us, strategically?
A whole new approach is required and we seem to be a long way away from that, or even recognizing that.
@Sketchbag
Too bad actual Afghans don’t think this.
Ugly Americanism at its best.Ignorance of foreign affairs.
Tactically, no match. ISAF dominates. But in the long run we should and will vacate Afghanistan. Just arm our guys (Northern Alliance and Hazara’s) and let them slug it out. Take it from the Pashtun’s perspective. One option is to farm a rock field or take up arms against the foreigners. Most 18 year olds are willing and eager to go off an fight. There will always be a steady flow of cannon fodder for the Taliban. These guys aren’t arabs, they will fight, always. They won’t export their struggle. Let them become a problem for Pakistan, who deserves as much.
The victory won’t be for the Taliban. By the time the ISAF is through with them they will be scarecrows.
Rather the ISI is looking for victory. The ISI is fighting to the last drop of Hakanni and Taliban blood.
Why? Because Afghanistan is rich in natural resources. The ISI is a merchant company with terrorism as one of its executive tools.
Unless the Afghans can secure other reliable and less exploitable routes out of Afghanistan –the Pakistani’s will control their easy access to ports and the outside world.
Because the ISI has so many commercial interests, American policy makers would be well advised to threaten to brand the ISI as a terrorist organization — if it does cut its terrorists links.
(Cutting ties with the terrorists and actually fighting them in any case would lead to more profitable deals for the ISI in any case.)
Muthuswamy,
Too rational for your own, and my, good.
Isn’t that what the US has been trying to do? And failing miserably, despite showing up bin Laden living in the protection of the self-same Army whose ways you want to change?
You can’t grow apples on a lemon tree. That is not scientific. That is looking at the ‘what should be’ while denying the ‘what is’. You can of course cut down one tree and grow another, or even a few. If you’re lucky, the tree might just wither away away and die of its own, especially if its infected.
Better than appointing AQ Khan as President though you never know…
Our politicians have already conceded Afghanistan. That’s why the dates for the draw down and the half hearted surge were schedule the way they were. Their wasting of US lives while saving political face/political gain makes me nauseous. No different then Vietnam, have plenty of military might and no political will. Ho Chi Minh and Osama both recognized it. They knew they didn’t have to beat us. Just give us a bloody nose and wait us out and the politicians will beat themselves. A long war requires leadership. Unfortunately our military answers to political leadership and leadership is something severely lacking in today’s political climate. Shame we couldn’t move the white house and congress to Kabul.
Sketchbag…I hate to break this to you but niether NATO, not nor the US Military has gotten “owned” by anyone. I have been there, you have not. The Taliban have killed about 1,700 Americans in 10 years…we have killed about 20,000 Taliban and Al Qaida fighters and leaders in the same time period accordig to the Associated Press and “Jane’s Intelligence”. The surge defeated them from every major stronghold they had prior to the surge, every credible analyst has agreed upon that. If you think that a bunch of half-butt mountain boys (save the haqqauni’s, who actually know how to fight) can win or are winning against the most lethal miltary ever fielded you are as biased and dellusional as you sound. Even the Haqqaunis have been no match for our drones and Spec Ops soldiers who are ther best in the world. Units like Delta and SEAL 6 have killed 20 of their top leaders and we have killed or captured 1,500 of their best fighters…and that is just this year alone. I know you don’t like the war, but at least get your facts straight.
Personally, I dont think we will be leaving in 2014. There will certainly be a long-term security pact in which we will be staying around to help train and advise, and provide air/logistical/spec-op support. I think the likeliest scenario is the amount of forces being dropped down to 25,000 or whatever – the amount that we had there for the majority of the war. As the ANA grows in size and competency, U.S.A needs to change its strategy to low intensity warfare and take away the one competitive advantage that the Taliban hold: Time.
At the end of the day, its going to be cheaper to just fund the ANA and reduce our presence to behind-the-scenes action.
The Taliban are in the main narco-terrorists.
That’s what fuels their wallet.
Should ANY government come to rule their lands — their income would plummet.
That the Taliban have gone into the opiates business is ironic — since ten years ago they were the scourge of poppy cultivation.
It is also notable that every failing army tells the troops that God is with them — and any day now victory will arrive out of nowhere.
Even profound atheists like Hitler and Stalin ‘got religion’ when their peril was great.
But, for the ultimate in false hope you’d have to read the 1945 Tokyo headlines. They had the American navy sunk four times over.
When the Emperor radio broadcast Japanese defeat he was so elliptical that it took hours for the man on the street to realize that Japan had lost!
The USMC campaign in and around Khandahar has flipped the politics of Afghanistan. The locals are no longer happy to go along with the Taliban. After all, they’re lousy for business.
This situation is downright depressing to me. Very similar to Vietnam, they have acheived in DC what they could never acheive on the battlefield.
It may indeed take a “Hail Mary play” for US to acheive a positive outcome in this thing. They mentioned a “decapitation strike” a while back. That’s what it may just take.
My guess is that it was most likely Adam Gadahne that authored that article. Hopefully soon, we’ll get our hands on him. Don’t be surprised if Pakistan finds him and hands him over to improve their image with US.
Some people get it some people don’t. The Taliban long ago ceased being the problem. The problem is Pakistan.
mike merlo,
Thats too simplistic. You can’t segment it so neatly. Of course Pak is a problem and the Taliban is integral to that. Nothing new.
There’s nothing so esoteric here to get or not get. But to say the Taliban is a spent force, well, you cannot be serious…
Fully agree with Mike Merlo-how many punjabis are involved in the insurgency!
What’s simplistic villiger is people such as yourself who keep feeding a myth & buying into a propaganda scam. The Taliban was shattered shortly after 9 11. They rec’d next to zero support from the Afghan’s at the time of the invasion & continue to receive very little ‘local’ support. ‘Witness’ Helmand & Khandahar; prior to the ‘Afghan Surge’ both areas were characterized as beyond ‘reproach.’ Within X amount of months the so called Taliban revealed themselves to be what they really are a marginal group of thugs, highwayman & land pirates shunned by the locals.
The ‘whole’ Taliban thing is a ruse perpetrated by the Paki’s, & Islamic fundamentalist/extremist(local & otherwise) to convince the Int’l community that the Taliban are some kind of homogeneous government/people in exile deserving of recognition . What a joke! For example check out the History of the Haqqani network & HIG (Gulbiddin Hekmatyar); both groups had nothing to do with the Taliban with HIG actually at war with Taliban. And now we have people, such as yourself, stepping all over themselves convinced that some how this neo-Taliban amalgamation represents Taliban redux. Every person of consequence has gone on record stating Pakistan is the problem excepting a group of excitable’s such as yourself claiming otherwise.
merlo:
“Every person of consequence has gone on record stating Pakistan is the problem excepting a group of excitable’s [sic] such as yourself claiming otherwise.”
—
You’re new around here so perhaps in your excitement to form yourself a “group”, your powers of comprehension and deduction have been affected, or perhaps they are inherently limited.
But what part of my comments, extracted from above and repeated for your benefit, do you not understand? :
“Pakistan hasn’t budged an inch from its State/Army policy of using the Taliban and other terror groups to achieve its goals.”
AND
“Of course Pak is a problem and the Taliban is integral to that. Nothing new.”
Btw, if you want me in your “group”, I’ll quote you from Groucho Marx–“I don’t want to be a member of a club that wants me as a member.” :-0
People often forget, and the Taliban also it would seem, that it is not only America in Afghanistan. ISAF is made up of many nations.
My point is the statement refers only to America, IMO this demostrates the Talibans skewed world view that America is the Great Satan etc and is out to rule the world. They forget that nearly all of the worlds Democracies are against them either fighting them with boots on the ground or are ideologically opposed to them.
The conflict will not be over when ISAF leaves, the Taliban also forget that Afghanistan has a Government and that they will not just be accepted back into power without a struggle against their own people.
@ Sketchbag
That is not how you measure victory in a conflict of this nature, it is political change that is the key (wheter this has happened is up for debate) it is possible to keep an insugency going indefinitely against massively superior forces, all it takes is one man with a gun to kill a police officer as we have seen the remants of the IRA do in the past few years. This does not in anyway indicate victory for them that they can still carry out operatiuons but more so their failure as the political landscape has matured and changed and left their violent ideology in the past.
It is not I that “simplistically segmented so neatly,” the Pakistani’s did that. Unfortunately for you villiger it is not I who is lacking or wanting in understanding but yourself. Fret not though with each passing of a ‘war fighting season’ the Taliban so many have come to know & embrace is really being exposed for the fraud that it is, a nonexistent entity propped up by paper & propaganda. By the way whats with the ‘group thing?’ Who cares. Oh & thank for sharing your paranormal prowess as to who or isn’t new. That’s rather presumptuous on your part.
Yes! Devine Victory on the horizon! Wait, wait a minute. What is that on the horizon? It looks like a swarm of DRONES!! Oh no!
Mike says, “This situation is downright depressing to me. Very similar to Vietnam, (the Taliban) have acheived in DC what they could never acheive on the battlefield.”
What happened in DC in the Vietnam era was only a victory of America’s virulent new left, and the willingness of politicians to pander to that movement. America has much more at risk in the global war with radical militant Islam than we did in Vietnam, but I see little recognition of that in the general public.
Guys….Taliban is very tough to defeat….This bunch has made their women folks to unconditionally turn to submission…..which the men around the world have been trying for ages! How can such bunch be defeated…they have the mighty Ak47s,the soviet bazzzoka,the holi book in their pocket and are brainless…..their ultimate weapon is suicide!! So you see…you can never defeat them…..Well, you can only think of wiping them from the face of this beautiful planet and may be preserve one of their specemen in the zoo for future scientific study!!… Lol… 🙂
I hear Tokyo Rose, Hanoi Hanna and Jane Fonda.
merlo:
“Fret not though with each passing of a ‘war fighting season’ the Taliban so many have come to know & embrace is really being exposed for the fraud that it is, a nonexistent entity propped up by paper & propaganda.”
AND you say that the Taliban is a “spent force”. So with 10 “fighting seasons” gone, or 40 depends which way you look at the seasons, how many more to come, do you reckon? If they’re spent why isn’t it over this season?
You’re totally devoid of logic, but feel free to keep digging your hole.
The only person “totally devoid of logic” are people such as yourself villiger. You obviously don’t comprehend or understand the nature of the type of warfare presently being waged in Afghanistan & the composition of the forces presently arrayed in opposition to it. Even during the height of their reign in Afghanistan at least 25% of Taliban forces were Pakistani, almost all of whom were drawn from the Pakistan’s military, & frontier corps. Another 5% to 15% were from other countries. Today the Taliban are little more than an issuer of proclamations, hollow threats & scattered groups of protagonists engaged in banditry, brigandage, the occasional ambush, planter(s) of IED’s, & assassination attempts.