'Taliban will be a threat to Central Asia and the world'
Darpan News Desk IANS, 27 Aug, 2021 10:35 AM
The Taliban militants that have captured Kabul and most of Afghanistan "will be a threat to Central Asia and the world", a senior member of the Panjshir Valley-based National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) told The Moscow Times.
"Russia should be concerned about the rise of the Taliban. The country will become a terrorist hub that will endanger Central Asia and Russia itself," Fahim Dashty told The Moscow Times by phone from the Panjshir Valley, where his resistance group has gathered as the country's last holdout against the Taliban.
The Panjshir region is famous for having successfully fought off invasions by Soviet forces in the Soviet-Afghan war from 1979-1989 as well as by the Taliban in the 1990s.
The NRF is currently led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a powerful guerrilla commander who led the resistance against the former Soviet Union.
Dashty was a close ally of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated in a suicide bombing instigated by Al Qaeda and the Taliban on September 9, 2001, an attack in which he was also injured.
He now acts as spokesperson for the slain commander's son.
On Wednesday, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the greatest threat posed by the Taliban was the "enormous" amount of arms the groups had captured as American troops hastily exited the country.
"The first and major threat is that the Taliban received an enormous amount of weapons. Enormous," Shoigu said, adding that he believed the Islamists now had hundreds of armoured vehicles, aircraft and helicopters.
Barrons, a Dow Jones & Company publication, said that tensions in the "Middle East have the potential to lift prices." It noted that earlier JP Morgan had predicted that oil prices could touch $80 a barrel with rising demand and constraint supply.
While Biden has previously blamed Afghans for the U.S. failure to get out more allies ahead of this month's sudden Taliban takeover, U.S. officials told The Associated Press that American diplomats had formally urged weeks ago that the administration ramp up evacuation efforts.
In a statement on Friday, the U.N. health agency said the new scientific group would provide the WHO with an independent analysis of the work done to date to pinpoint the origins of COVID-19 and to advise the agency on necessary next steps. The experts will also provide guidance on critical issues regarding the potential emergence of other viruses capable of triggering outbreaks, such as MERS and Ebola.
During their first press conference on Tuesday the Taliban pressed the right button-backing women's rights. But their promise of protecting women's rights had an important nuance: Women will enjoy freedoms but within the ambit of "Islamic law" .
A contingent of persons from the Hindu and Sikh communities who are stranded in Afghanistan were provided reassurance of safety by the Taliban, media reports said. Over 300 Hindus and Sikhs are reportedly taking shelter at the Karte Parwan Gurudwara in Kabul.
We need humanitarian supplies. The refugee situation we updated you with last week and the week before has only deteriorated. We have 300,000 internal refugees and 80,000 children who are without shelter and food. Where we were short of supplies, now we are out.
