The Taliban terrorist organization celebrated the third anniversary of President Joe Biden facilitating its return to power in Afghanistan on Wednesday, hosting a large military parade on the former U.S. air base site at Bagram featuring U.S.-made equipment and welcoming envoys from Iran and China.
August 15 will mark three years since the fundamentalist Taliban terror group stormed Kabul, the nation’s capital, while then-President Ashraf Ghani fled in a helicopter. The Afghan military had collapsed by then, leading to a nearly bloodless takeover of the government for the Taliban. The Taliban remains at press time the uncontested government of Afghanistan, though no country recognizes it as such in an official capacity.
The fall of Kabul was preceded by Biden announcing that he would break an agreement the United States, in its 20th year present in the Afghan war theater, with the Taliban to leave the country by May 1, 2021, in exchange for the Taliban not attacking Americans and cutting ties with terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. Biden replacing the deal, brokered by predecessor Donald Trump, with an extension of the war into September 2021 that never happened, as the Taliban had disintegrated the official Afghan government by then.
The Taliban so swiftly dismantling the Afghan government resulted in a haphazard, and deadly, exit for American troops from the country that left the jihadists possessing millions of dollars of American equipment, some of it on display at the former Bagram air base on Wednesday.
“The Taliban’s armed forces towed Soviet-era tanks and artillery pieces through the former U.S. air base in Bagram, where Chinese and Iranian diplomats were also present,” the Turkish outlet Daily Sabah, citing international agencies, reported. “A swarm of motorbikes strapped with yellow jerry cans, often used to carry improvised explosive devices (IED) during the fight against international forces, also rumbled past assembled officials.”
The outlet also identified “U.S.-made armored personnel carriers” being driven in the parade. A report published in February 2023 by the office of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that Biden left at least $7.2 billion worth of military equipment to the Taliban.
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The Biden administration surrendered Bagram shortly before the fall of Kabul, replete with the supplies abandoned there and a population of jihadist inmates estimated to total about 5,000 men. One of those prisoners was later identified as the suicide bomber responsible for the massacre of 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. servicemembers at Kabul’s international airport on August 26, 2021.
According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Taliban made the parade an international occasion by inviting unnamed “Chinese and Iranian diplomats.” While neither country officially recognizes the Taliban as a government entity, both maintain friendly ties to the Taliban. China became the first country to accept a Taliban ambassador to Beijing in December.
China’ state-run CGTN network covered the Taliban celebrations in Afghanistan favorably on Tuesday, publishing videos of parades, what appeared to be youth athletic fairs, and a paratrooper display.
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The Bagram parade featured a speech by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a New York Times–published terrorist who serves as the “interior minister” of the Taliban government.
“My message to the international community is that there is no need for dismay over the fact that you took our independence, and we reclaimed it successfully,” Haqqani claimed. “We do not want to hold anyone accountable. We have created favorable circumstances and have good intentions for them to cooperate with us in rebuilding Afghanistan, similar to how they helped during the occupation.”
Official Taliban propaganda omitted the tone of reconciliation that Haqqani used in his address, openly celebrating “jihad” against America.
“To achieve this day, our mujahideen [holy warriors] and people underwent many hardships and difficulties and as a result of jihad, struggle, patience and perseverance,” an official Taliban statement published on social media by top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid read. “The great aggressive forces of the time were defeated and our Jihadi struggle was victorious.”
“The twenty-year infidel occupation and the martyrdom and sacrifices of our people against it left a great lesson for our future generations that should never be forgotten,” the statement continued. “We commit to the Islamic system, which has been achieved through the great efforts of Afghans and in the shadow of which the ruling religion of Allah and Sharia [Islamic law] have been implemented.”
The Kabul Times, a Taliban propaganda newspaper, also honored the “mujahid nation and the heroes of Afghanistan” for killing Americans and NATO allies.
“During the 20 years that the country was occupied by the U.S. and NATO, the Mujahid nation and the heroes of Afghanistan did not sit aside for a moment as they started Jihad and resistance against the invaders,” the newspaper claimed.
The Kabul Times went on to bafflingly claim that the Taliban had “ended all ethnic, regional, racial, or religious discrimination in the country.”
Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund separately issued a statement telling Afghans that their “duty did not end with the victory in jihad.”
“We now have the responsibility to strengthen the regime, rebuild the country, protect the people’s property and honor, and compensate for the damages caused by previous wars,” he mandated.
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