The Taliban jihadist terror organization celebrated the final withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan on Wednesday, the anniversary of the occasion, with fireworks and a celebration at Bagram Air Base, formerly America’s largest military facility in the country.
As they did on August 15, the day of their seizure of Kabul, the Taliban declared Wednesday a national holiday and organized a series of ceremonies across the country to mark the departure of American troops.
The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, returned to power on August 15, 2021, after then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the nation’s capital, Kabul. The jihadists had launched a national campaign to oust Ghani after leftist President Joe Biden announced in April of that year that he would not honor an agreemenst between Washington and the Taliban to withdraw all American forces from the country by May 1 of that year, extending the war through September 11 – the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks that prompted the Afghan War. Ultimately, Biden was unable to keep his troops in the country beyond August 31, as the Taliban overran the country and seized key facilities such as Bagram.
Following the takeover, the Taliban seized billions of dollars in American military equipment, which it continues to use to oppress Afghans to this day. Bagram alone, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), was worth upwards of $560 million when the Taliban overran it. Bagram was one of at least ten other American military facilities the Taliban took over upon ousting the U.S.-backed government.
The former American military base, Afghanistan’s Khaama Press reported, hosted a nationally televised celebration on Wednesday “which included a military parade and triumph chants.” The parade served to showcase the size of the Taliban’s military, which it has been rebuilding following the complete collapse of Afghanistan’s National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) last year.
Taliban “Prime Minister” Mullah Hassan Akhund presided over the celebration at Bagram, offering a speech celebrating what he portrayed as an American defeat and crediting the Sunni jihadists with ending “killings and bombings” in the country – a claim not corroborated by the reality of the past year in Afghanistan.
“Death is over, there is freedom day and night, a person can go anywhere, whether you are a laborer, a farmer, or work in any sector, there is a free space, whether from one corner of Afghanistan to another. Go, there is no problem for you,” Akhund proclaimed, apparently omitting women from his declaration of freedom, as Taliban leaders have banned them from leaving their homes.
Akhund also condemned the United States for freezing Afghan government assets housed in American institutions and refusing to recognize the Taliban terrorist group as the official government of Afghanistan.
“When the foreigners departed Afghanistan, they took everything with them and imposed sanctions, which exacerbated the country’s poverty,” Tolo News quoted Akhund as saying. “The path of understanding, harmony, and brotherhood gets results, whereas pressures and sanctions do not.”
Reports published last week, citing anonymous U.S. government officials, suggested that the Biden administration is considering unfreezing some funds for the Taliban.
Outside of the former American military base, Taliban leaders organized fireworks displays to celebrate their victory on Wednesday.
“The Islamic system has come, the white flag is waving today on Afghan soil,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid celebrated on Twitter, where the top terrorist group mouthpiece regularly publishes Taliban propaganda.
“Almighty Allah granted great freedom and victory to our faithful and mujahid people with his grace and special support. It is necessary for our mujahid and believing nation to give thanks for this great freedom and victory,” Mujahid proclaimed in an official statement on the anniversary also shared via Twitter. “On the arrival of the first anniversary of this great occasion, we congratulate the entire Islamic nation, especially the mujahid and suffering nation, the mujahideen, the disabled, the wounded, orphans, widows and heirs of the martyrs, and we raise our hands to Almighty Allah [to aid] all the tasks in accept[ing] the way of Jihad.”
Taliban leaders have spent the past year trying to convince the world to recognize them as legitimate government leaders and promising a more “inclusive” rule than their reign in the 1990s, which was characterized by human rights atrocities in the name of their fundamentalist interpretation of sharia, or the Islamic law. The jihadists have nonetheless clung to the language of jihad, or holy war, and as recently as this week boasted the formalization of a wing of suicide bombers into its armed forces, the “Martyrdom Brigades.”
Taliban leaders also repeatedly claim they have no ties to any terrorist organization that poses a threat to outside states. This claim met with a particularly conspicuous rebuke this month when the White House announced that a U.S. drone strike in Kabul had eliminated the head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was reportedly living openly in the capital in a home believed to belong to Taliban “interior minister” Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Taliban leaders claim they had “no information” of Zawahiri’s whereabouts and alleged last week that they never found his body in the rubble of the drone strike, insisting they have no reason to believe that he was ever present in Afghanistan.