Taliban in Afghanistan: advance with amnesty promises

The Afghan army seems to have largely collapsed, the Taliban are rushing from success to success – and promise forbearance to the defeated. But many people flee from them.

A group of Taliban stands in the control room of a radio station. They hold their hands in prayer – and they celebrate. What was “Radio Kandahar” yesterday is the “voice of Sharia” today.

The renaming of the radio station is program – because the Sharia, the Islamic legal system, is to become the legal basis of the new Afghanistan that the Taliban want to establish.

This “Islamic Emirate” is not about revenge, said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a radio interview: of course there have been years of conflict. And in the areas that are now being taken, there are people who have fought against the Taliban or carried out propaganda over the past 20 years.

“But our policy is to tolerate them and we accept them all because they are Afghans, we need peace and stability again. If we take revenge, then we cannot rule the country,” he says. That is why a public amnesty has now been announced – “and all people have been forgiven”.

Ex-Bundeswehr location Mazar-i-Sharif under pressure

But this conflict that the Taliban is talking about is not over yet. Since this morning there has been an offensive on Mazar-i-Sharif, the big city in northern Afghanistan, where the Bundeswehr was until the end of June.

The security situation in the city is getting worse and worse, a resident told a reporter for the AP news agency: “As a young person who has lived here for 18 years, I want peace and stability, the fighting should stop.”

Advance on Kabul

Today there is also heavy fighting in the vicinity of the capital. A province south of Kabul has been completely captured by the Taliban. Another, Wardak, southwest of Kabul, is contested. Apparently the radical Islamists want to surround the capital, as they have done with other cities before.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani addressed his people with a televised address at noon. Quite a few had expected that he would resign. But there was no question of resigning. He said he wanted to prevent the achievements of the past 20 years from being lost. And then the Afghan army should be strengthened: “In the current situation, our priority is the cohesion of the security and defense forces, and serious measures are being taken.”

But few believe that the Afghan army can do much to counter the Taliban after it has shown signs of disintegration in many places in recent days.

Meanwhile, more and more refugees are arriving in Kabul – from all parts of the country. Many of them hope to be safe at least in the capital.