The Hamas militant group that attacked Israel in May has expressed support for the Taliban for its success in taking over Afghanistan back from U.S. rule. On Monday, Hamas released a statement congratulating the Taliban for taking over Afghanistan and its capital of Kabul.
"We congratulate the Muslim Afghan people for the defeat of the American occupation on all Afghan lands, and we congratulate the Taliban movement and its brave leadership on this victory, which culminated its long struggle over the past 20 years," the Hamas Islamic terror group said in a statement, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.
The Taliban's success in taking back Afghanistan from American occupation, which only occurred because President Joe Biden ordered U.S. troops to come home, was highlighted by Hamas, which believed that they too can be successful in ridding Israel of Jews in order to make it an Islamic state.
While Hamas said they "wish the Afghan Muslim people success," they also "[stressed] that the demise of the American occupation and its allies proves that the resistance of the peoples, foremost of which is our struggling Palestinian people, will achieve victory."
The Taliban or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) as known to its members, is an Islamist movement and military organization that is waging war within their own country through the harsh enforcement of Islamic Shariah law.
Despite being categorized with the likes of ISIS and al-Qaida, the Taliban is in fact not on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, CNBC TV18 reported. Instead, the U.S. government recognizes the Taliban as an "insurgency, a revolutionary group."
According to the Christian Headlines, Hamas' political bureau member Musa Abu Marzouk expressed his support for the Taliban and the Muslim takeover of Afghanistan on Sunday, calling them "victorious" despite it being "accused of backwardness and terrorism." He praised the Taliban for being "more clever and more realistic." He added that the Taliban's refusal to accept "half-solutions" and "slogans of democracy and elections and fake promises," they were able to show a "lesson for all oppressed people."
Muhammed Arif Mustafa, a Taliban commander, told CNN that the group is not "in a hurry" for Afghanistan and the rest of the world to completely come under the rule of Islamic law and the mujahideen. He promised, "It's our belief that one day mujahideen will have victory, and Islamic law will come not to just Afghanistan, but all over the world. We believe it will come one day. Jihad will not end until the last day."
Christianity Daily reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed his disappointment in the Afghan army's "lack of resistance" to the Taliban forces, saying that the Afghan army had ample resources and were backed by 20 years of training under U.S. troops to fight back.
Unfortunately, Sec. Austin said that despite the sophisticated weaponry, it was the intangible things such as "will" and "leadership" that was lacking from the Afghan army. The U.S. and Taliban had already come to an agreement on the 14-month timeline for the U.S. to send their troops home from Afghanistan.
(photo of Afghanistan flag from Nicholas Raymond)
