[ad_1]
On the border with Pakistan, hundreds of Afghans are ready in line to get their passports stamped to allow them to depart Afghanistan behind and by no means return.
On this sizzling and humid day, as they cram between two fences like livestock, the sight of determined vacationers passing out is all too frequent, with ready instances averaging from three hours to a complete day through the busiest intervals.
The one reduction from the warmth is the bottled water bought by kids as younger as 5 who run up and down the fence shouting costs at thirsty vacationers.
Past the chaotic crossing, a former contractor sighs in reduction.
“I am comfortable as a result of I really feel like I’ve been bailed out of jail” says 45-year-old Yousafkhel Jabar Khan. He plans to safe his asylum case via an embassy.
“I hope that I don’t see their (Taliban) faces once more,” he confessed.
Khan’s story is echoed by numerous others who wish to put the Taliban’s Afghanistan of their previous. Two years for the reason that Taliban took over once more, Afghanistan is within the fingers of Hibatullah Akhundzada, often known as the Amir Al Mu’mineen, or “Commander of the Trustworthy.”
However regardless of the prominence of his position, Hibatullah maintains anonymity for probably the most half. Because the Taliban declared victory following the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, their chief has not but been seen in public.
Even amongst his ranks, it is extraordinarily tough to talk to any Taliban official on the document about their supreme chief.
Clandestine-like conferences
A deputy minister within the Taliban’s authorities described having to journey greater than 300 miles to the traditional metropolis of Kandahar to satisfy with the nation’s chief.
As soon as there, he waited for round three days earlier than getting a name confirming that the assembly would go forward. In a scene akin to a clandestine assembly, he was taken to 2 separate places and had his belongings confiscated earlier than lastly being taken to Hibatullah.
“He was sitting on the flooring regardless of the room having couches. He got here throughout very humble but spectacular, his data concerning Islamic regulation and its jurisdiction needs to be acknowledged,” the deputy minister mentioned.
One other high-ranking Taliban member advised CBS Information the chief is ruling the nation like a ghost from his personal capital.
He described comparable ranges of secrecy and safety previous his assembly with Hibatullah, going as far as to be given passwords to memorize in an effort to confirm his identification earlier than being transported to the assembly location.
Afghanistan’s chief maintains this terribly low profile because of the looming menace from US drone strikes and the ISKP – an Islamic State affiliate group – in keeping with a supply inside the Taliban management.
Inside his circle, each employees member is beneath 24hr surveillance and smartphones are banned.
Iron fist rule
However from behind the veil of secrecy and safety, Hibatullah guidelines with an iron fist. Since climbing to energy, he has been accountable for stopping women and girls from attending highschool or universities, banning them from parks, gyms and public baths, and ordering them to cowl up when leaving house.
From early maturity, he was in opposition to modern-day training for girls and boys and referred to education as a supply of evil and degenerating of morality.
Afghan political analyst and critic Asmat Qani recollects assembly Hibatullah when he was only a younger choose.
“[He] lives in his personal world”, Qani advised CBS Information. “Nearly all of the Taliban agree on the significance of girls’s training and wish to enable women to attend faculties and universities. He alone is usually accountable for the ban.”
“Such violent and slender minded interpretation of Islam has made Afghanistan a residing hell for ladies,” a former Taliban minister advised CBS Information.
The supply additionally blamed the supreme chief’s actions for the worldwide sanctions Afghanistan has been residing beneath.
Mullah Basir is a former classmate of Hibatullah and, regardless of criticizing him a hardliner and excessive conservative, describes him as a “variety, religious and clever particular person.”
He advised CBS Information that after the killing of the Taliban chief who preceded him, Hibatullah was taken away and he by no means noticed him once more.
Supreme authority
His appointment as supreme chief was defined to CBS Information by a supply among the many Taliban management as a strategy to stabilize the issues on the high. Hibatullah was seen as a impartial and respectable determine amongst Taliban seniors
“Hibatullah has regularly discovered and felt that he’s the ultimate degree of authority, a person on the high of the hierarchy of a gaggle that’s fiercely loyal to him,” Qani advised CBS. “He can do just about no matter he needs.”
As we speak, Hibatullah surrounds himself with round 2,500 suicide bombers who’re ready to sacrifice themselves for his security. They dwell in a camp that used to host Taliban founder Mullah Omar and was later used as a compound by the CIA in Kandahar.
One member of the Supreme Chief’s Guard Corps advised CBS Information they’re paid a wage of $170 a month and are usually not allowed to have sensible telephones, watch T.V. or entry social media.
In June, Hibatullah mentioned in a uncommon public message that the measures he took concerning ladies’s rights in Afghanistan have supplied a “snug and affluent life in keeping with Islamic Sharia.”
[ad_2]
Source link