Taliban: “Once we take over the country…”

JOHN D MCHUGH/Getty Images Taliban leaders in Musa Qala are dreaming big. The town in Afghanistan’s Helmand province has bounced several times between government and Taliban control. Last year, British troops negotiated a controversial truce with Taliban fighters that stipulated a joint withdrawal. According to this recent dispatch from the Institute for War and Peace ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.
597960_071128_helmand_05.jpg
597960_071128_helmand_05.jpg

JOHN D MCHUGH/Getty Images

JOHN D MCHUGH/Getty Images

Taliban leaders in Musa Qala are dreaming big. The town in Afghanistan’s Helmand province has bounced several times between government and Taliban control. Last year, British troops negotiated a controversial truce with Taliban fighters that stipulated a joint withdrawal. According to this recent dispatch from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, we can chalk this one up for the Taliban:

The Taleban control the district the same way they did when they were in power in Afghanistan. The only difference is now there are no men from the committee for “the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice” patrolling the streets. “We do not punish people for their hair and beards right now,” explained the Taleban district governor. “But once we take over the country, we will treat people according to the orders of our supreme leader Mullah Omar.”

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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