Taliban Supreme Leader Says Foreign Affairs Will Follow Islamic Law

Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada held a meeting of some 3,000 tribal and regional officials in Kandahar on Thursday, during which he said foreign affairs would be conducted in accordance with the Taliban’s notion of Islamic sharia law. In other words, he was pledging to ignore international human rights concerns, including objections to the Taliban’s barbaric treatment of women.

Akhundzada is the reclusive “spiritual leader” of the Taliban and the nominal head of state for the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” He communicates largely through audio and written statements, frequently invoking his authority as a cleric to make pronouncements on Muslim religious matters.

Little is known about Akhundzada except that he was an early recruit to the Taliban, he served as its chief judge during the 1996-2001 regime, he fled to Pakistan to run a religious academy after the U.S. invasion, and his son Abdur Rahman was a suicide bomber. He keeps such a low profile that rumors of his death constantly swirl through Afghanistan. Kandahar is thought to be his base of operations.

A Taliban handout photo from 2016 of Haibatullah Akhundzada. (AFP)

Analysts disagree about how much power Akhundzada actually wields. Some credit him with pulling the various factions of the Taliban together for the conquest of Afghanistan after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of American forces in 2021. Others see him as a figurehead, occasionally trotted out to make religious pronouncements or oversee ceremonial events.

A U.S. soldier holds a sign indicating a gate is closed as hundreds of people gather some holding documents, near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Wali Sabawoon)

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader harbored by the Taliban who was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Kabul at the beginning of August, swore allegiance to Akhundzada shortly after the fall of Kabul. One of the “supreme leader’s” major functions appears to be collecting such vows of fealty.

397285 02: UNDATED PHOTO Osama bin Laden (L) sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian linked to the al Qaeda network, during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured) at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan. In the article, which was published November 10, 2001 in Karachi, bin Laden said he had nuclear and chemical weapons and might use them in response to U.S. attacks. (Photo by Visual News/Getty Images)

Osama bin Laden (L) sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian linked to the al Qaeda network, during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured) at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan. (Visual News/Getty Images)

Akhundzada occasionally takes the lead in pushing back against the human rights concerns of the civilized world. In July, he addressed an assembly of Muslim clerics in Kabul and declared foreigners “should not give us their orders” because Afghanistan has become an “independent country” under Taliban rule.

“The success of the Afghan jihad is not only a source of pride for Afghans but also for Muslims all over the world,” he declared.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - AUGUST 15: Taliban take to the streets during a national holiday celebrating the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. A year after the Taliban retook Kabul, cementing their rule of Afghanistan after a two-decade insurgency, the country is beset by economic and humanitarian crises. Western governments have frozen billions of dollars in Afghan assets as it presses the Taliban to honor unmet promises on security, governance and human rights, including allowing all girls to be educated. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

Taliban take to the streets during a national holiday celebrating the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

The gathering Akhundzada addressed in Kandahar on Thursday was roughly as large as the July confab in Kabul. The Taliban took the occasion to condemn the U.S. drone strike that killed Zawahiri and threaten neighboring countries that allowed their airspace to be used for such operations.

“This meeting is called to think about the freedom we received by the blessing of Allah, which we achieved from the blood of our mujahideen,” he told the gathering.

“We will deal with the international community as per Islamic Sharia,” Akhundzada said. “If Sharia doesn’t allow it, we will not deal with any other country.”

Akhundzada and other Taliban officials insist the “Islamic Emirate” has full control over all of Afghanistan, but a deadly bombing in Kabul that killed influential cleric Amir Mohammad Kabuli on Wednesday was the latest evidence that the Islamic State (ISIS) is still contesting Taliban rule. A week earlier, ISIS took responsibility for a bomb attack that killed another prominent cleric linked to the Taliban.

The Taliban also faces a surprisingly successful insurgency in northern Afghanistan, led by one of its own former commanders, Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahid.

Mahdi is a Shiite Muslim, unlike the majority of Taliban leaders who are Sunnis, and he appears to be gathering strength among Shiites and other alienated Afghan minorities, such as the Hazaras. His group is too small to fight for control of the entire country, but he controls enough territory to prompt a brutal counter-offensive from the Taliban.

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