During a recent interview, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan refused to label the Taliban as an enemy of the US.
Sullivan was on the show two days after American soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to seize control of the capital when the leader of the US-backed Afghan government fled the country.
🚨🚨: Jake Sullivan refuses to call the Taliban an enemy, saying "it’s hard to put a label on it."
— John Cooper (@thejcoop) August 31, 2021
The Taliban helped facilitate 9/11, and the National Security Adviser won't call them an enemy. This is the Biden administration. #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/tSmrg9LK2U
When reporters questioned Sullivan about the US’s relations with the Taliban following their seizure of Kabul and if they were regarded a “frenemy, adversary, or enemy,” Sullivan stated that he was unsure how to define the terrorist group’s relationship with the US.
“Well, it’s hard to put a label on it, in part, because we have yet to see what they are going to be now that they are in control—physical control of Afghanistan,” Sullivan said.
“They will, in the coming days, announce a government. That government is going to go around seeking diplomatic engagement, even recognition from other countries, including the United States. In fact, the Taliban spokesman today said he was looking for positive relations on behalf of the Taliban, especially with the United States.”
Sullivan continued by saying that while the Taliban were not “nice guys,” the administration expects to work cooperatively with them to ensure the safe withdrawal of remaining US nationals and friends from the country.
“We’re not just going to grant positive relations to the Taliban. They’re going to have to earn everything from the international community through actions, not words,” Sullivan said.
“That begins with safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies, and that also includes them living up to their counterterrorism commitments, including that Afghanistan can never again be used as a base with which to attack the United States or our allies.”
The Pentagon confirmed Monday that the final American troops had departed from Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai International Airport shortly before morning, bringing America’s longest war to a conclusion and leaving the country in a state of uncertainty with the Taliban controlling the majority of the country.
Anti-Taliban warriors have assembled in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, vowing to resist Taliban control unless the terrorist group agrees to negotiate the formation of a representative government free of Sharia law.
According to a resistance official, seven or eight Taliban fighters were killed in confrontations at the valley’s mouth on Monday. Several thousand anti-Taliban fighters are thought to have assembled with resistance leader Ahmad Massoud, the son of Afghan resistance fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought Soviet forces during Afghanistan’s 1980 invasion.
Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s first vice president, who is seeking support as the country’s acting president in accordance with the constitution, is also assembled in the Panjshir Valley alongside Massoud and other like-minded government members.
US authorities, including Central Command chief Gen. Frank McKenzie, confirmed last week that the country had been left with “hundreds” of Americans seeking evacuation.
“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out,” McKenzie said, adding that it is a “tough situation.”
While the Taliban have promised to govern the country more moderately than they did 20 years ago, Afghans and the international community remain suspicious of such statements in light of reports of killings, arrests, detentions, and threats.
According to one evacuee, Fawad, a PhD researcher who had worked for the government before to the Taliban takeover, the organization is taking control of Kabul through threats and compulsion.
Fawad claims the terrorist group tracked down his residence and paid him a visit shortly after he escaped his homeland on Aug. 24 with his children and wife.
The former government employee stated that he was aware of three additional Afghans, one of whom held a senior position in the Afghan media, who had been detained and tortured for three days by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, a leaked document from the nonprofit RHIPTO Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, which supplies intelligence to the United Nations, appears to corroborate reports that the Taliban has been performing violent acts of vengeance against their adversaries.
According to the report, the Taliban terrorist group was conducting highly organized door-to-door manhunts for individuals on their wanted list, threatening to kill or injure their relatives unless they surrendered.
The United States State Department does not classify the Taliban as a terrorist organization, but its allies, the Haqqani network, al Qaeda, and its Pakistani counterpart Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, are.
And as the latest news suggests forces from the resistance in the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan have claimed that al-Qaeda has joined the Taliban. The statement, published on Twitter, claims the two organisations joined forces in order to fight the resistance in the Panjshir Valley.
“Al-Qaeda has joined the Taliban to fight against the Afghan Resistance Front. The US retreated, history repeats itself”, the resistance front tweeted.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images