The Taliban terrorist organization in charge of Afghanistan issued a statement on Wednesday recognizing President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in this week’s presidential vote, recalling positively that Trump worked to end the 20-year-old Afghan war during his first term in office.
The Taliban “foreign ministry” suggested that a second Trump presidency could lead to “tangible progress” in U.S.-Afghan relations and, beyond its country, the Taliban suggested that Trump could be a “constructive” influence in the ongoing war between Israel and the genocidal terrorists of Hamas in Gaza.
President-elect Trump decisively won Tuesday’s presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris, making him only the second president in American history, after Grover Cleveland, to win two non-consecutive terms in office. His campaign often condemned the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden for its catastrophic handling of Afghanistan policy, which resulted in the collapse of the Afghan military and government – and return of the Taliban to power – in August 2021.
During his time in office, Trump also focused on negotiations with the Taliban to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war that did little to change the political landscape in the country. Shortly before Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden, his administration brokered an agreement with the Taliban terrorists and the then-Afghan government that would have had troops withdrawn from the country by May 2021. Biden broke the deal and extended the Afghan War, leading directly to the return of the Taliban to power.
Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi issued a statement on Wednesday that did not explicitly congratulate Trump on his victory but expressed optimism for improved relations with Washington during his presidency. Balkhi’s statement expressed hope that Trump would take “realistic steps” to achieve “tangible progress in the relations between the two countries” and that “both countries will be able to open a new chapter of relations in the light of mutual interaction.”
The Taliban spokesman noted favorably that Trump brokered the deal that would have ended the Afghan War in May 2021, known colloquially as the Doha Agreement, as it was negotiated in the Qatari capital.
“After that, the 20-year occupation ended,” the Taliban statement read, without elaborating that the “occupation” ended with Biden hastily withdrawing and abandoning millions of dollars in military equipment to the Taliban.
“It is also expected that Mr. Trump will play a constructive role in ending the ongoing war in the region and the world, especially in Gaza and Lebanon,” he added.
The Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency relayed the contents of the statement while also highlighting the Doha agreement, applauding Trump’s leadership on those negotiations.
“It is worth noting that the Doha Agreement, signed between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the United States under President Donald Trump’s administration, marked the conclusion of a two-decade-long foreign military presence in Afghanistan,” Bakhtar observed.
During the last year of Trump’s first term as president, the now-president-elect deployed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Doha for direct negotiations with the Taliban, which at the time maintained a “political” office in Qatar. The “Doha Agreement” consisted of a series of commitments that the Taliban would assume in exchange for the full withdrawal of American troops from the country. The Trump administration got the Taliban to agree to distance itself from other jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and to stop attacking American forces in exchange for Trump engaging in an orderly withdrawal of American troops to be completed by May 1, 2021.
Speaking to Breitbart News from Doha, Pompeo emphasized that the agreement would require serious talks between the Taliban and the now-defunct Afghan government of the time. He noted that the agreement had put America on a path to responsibly end the two-decade-old war.
“So, 19 years after 9/11, we finally have the Afghans prepared to sit down and have a serious conversation about taking their country forward without all the violence,” Pompeo told Breitbart News. “President Trump laid out two objectives: One, reduce the American footprint there and get our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines — get everybody home. … Second, we’re going to have to make sure we protect the homeland.”
Pompeo warned at the time that “there are many hands who would like to see this undone and would like to see America mired in Afghanistan for another 20 years.”
In April 2021, Biden announced that, rather than ending the Afghan War, he would unilaterally rupture the Doha Agreement and extend the war into September, marking the 20-year anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the American homeland in 2001. The Taliban responded by declaring the Doha Agreement dead and launching 22,000 terrorist attacks in the ensuing months, eroding the strength of the Afghan military. By August 15, a month before the new Biden deadline, American troops abandoned the Bagram Airbase – and its critical military supplies – and the Taliban marched on Kabul, prompting then-President Ashraf Ghani to flee and surrender the country without a fight.
The days after the fall of Kabul were violent and chaotic. America lost 13 servicemembers that month in a bombing of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport later attributed to the Islamic State, an alleged rival of the Taliban. Biden’s Pentagon also approved an airstrike targeting an innocent Afghan man who worked for an American organization, killing him and seven children. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley called the incident a “righteous strike.” No one in the Biden administration faced any consequences for the massacre.