Kabul [Afghanistan]: Key Taliban commander and close aide to former Taliban founder and leader Mullah Omar, Syed Mohammad Tayyab Agha, has asked the group’s present chief Mawlavi Haibatullah Akhundzada to stop killing aide and construction workers working towards development of the country.
Agha, reportedly in a letter asked Akhundzada to, “Stop killing people under suspicion traveling on roads. Stop bombing bridges, roads, and other similar places. Stop killing aid and construction workers who are helping our nation and building our homeland”, reports the Khaama Press.
“All the mujahedin fighters should be ordered to cease killing our opponents inside mosques and stop killing prisoners,” the letter added.
In the letter, Questioning the Taliban’s current strategy, which mainly relies on overrunning rural territories and complex urban attacks that often result in a high number of civilian casualties, Agha also urged Akhundzada, “You should give up using violence and intimidation to force people to pledge their allegiance to you as the commander of the faithful until you can meet all the requirements [outlined in Islamic Shari’a law].”
He also asked the Taliban chief to cut all ties with Pakistan saying “How can the Taliban leadership, now camped in Pakistan, demand that people in Afghanistan or elsewhere pledge allegiance to them?”
“A reliance on media propaganda and forming [shadow] government institutions, control of rural territories, and most of the movement’s leadership being in a foreign country [Pakistan] doesn’t amount to a [legitimate] government in our country,” he wrote.
Agha, who relinquished his position as head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar last year, has sharply questioned key Taliban ideological tenets. (ANI)