The Taliban regime used India’s humanitarian support “for their forces and their families, not people who are really in need,” according to Ahmed Masoud, the leader of the Afghan National Resistance Front, which is the main opposition to the Taliban.
Massoud also pointed to a link between Afghanistan under Taliban rule and increasing violence in Kashmir.
In an exclusive interview with Indian Express From an unknown location in the region, 33-year-old Massoud is the son of the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud who was known as Asad. PanjshirHe said, “I don’t want power and my struggle is for justice now… My struggle, it is for justice and freedom.”
India is sending 50,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan through the United Nations World Food Programme. But Masoud said, “The Taliban used [India’s] Humanitarian support for their troops and families, not people who are really in need.”
“They don’t distribute aid fairly, and they give it to one region more than the other regions on the basis of ethnicity,” he said. This is the first time that an Afghan leader has made this accusation against the Taliban.
Emphasizing that Afghanistan has gone back to the “dark ages,” Massoud said the Taliban harbor al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. “They roam and work freely,” he said.
Ahmed Masoud stands in front of a painting of his father Ahmed Shah Masoud, nicknamed the Lion of Panjshir.In reference to The American strike that killed Ayman al-ZawahiriHe said the presence of the al-Qaeda leader in central Kabul at the time of the attack “was not surprising”.
“To surrender to the will of the Taliban, is to surrender to the will of terrorism,” he said, criticizing Pakistan for being a “teacher” of the Taliban. “This is a conflagration that Pakistan has manipulated, and sooner or later we will see that it will backfire on them,” he said.
Taliban rule will become a safe haven, especially when there is no legitimate government in Kabul. It is a safe haven for many terrorist groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and many others, which pose a threat to India and all countries in the region. To thrive, to use Afghanistan to work, to recruit their own kind of goals and to target them strategically.
The events in Kashmir have multiplied since the takeover of the Taliban. There is a direct link between Afghanistan under the Taliban and the increase in violence in Kashmir and also the increase in the violence of these terrorist groups, because they see the possibility that if we continue to shed blood and terrorist acts, just like the Taliban, we will also support, and we will also succeed in establishing an extremist government elsewhere. “It is very important for all of us to gather all efforts together and defeat this extremist narrative, because it is spreading,” Masoud said.
Asked about the difference in India’s approach than it was earlier when he was said to have secretly aided his father Ahmed Shah Massoud’s northern alliance in the 1990s, he said: “I think the difference in approach is hesitation. India is still in the process of assessing the situation. This hesitation is fatal. It is very wrong. And we need immediate action before the ideology takes hold or before the terrorist finds a foundation.”
He said, “It is very important to understand that we are on the same page, we are continuing the same path as my father. So the sooner the hesitation ends, the sooner we can come to the conclusion that a joint effort should be made against terrorism in the region, the better. Because whether we like it or not. No, we are the last line of defense for the people of Afghanistan against terrorism.”
He said he reached out to India “at all levels of government” and sought “political support” and “[military] Logistics Services.
Masoud also said that he was offered a position in the Taliban government, when he met the regime’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mottaki in Iran this year, and that he rejected the offer.
Regarding the resistance waged by its fighters, he said that there are about 3,500 of them spreading from the Panjshir Valley and expanding to Herat, Faryab, Mazhar, Kunduz, Baghlan, Takhar and Badakhshan.
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Masoud said they have set up a “command and control center.” “We have no support from outside at all. It is based on our people’s generosity, commitment and desire to continue to resist and fight…But our tactic at this moment is exactly what my father (Ahmad Shah Massoud) used against the Soviets at that time, a guerrilla war,” he said. Massoud’s father, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated days before the assassination 9/11 attacks in the United States.