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Taliban Map Out Future Vision for Afghanistan

The militant group’s spokesman vows to “continue our war” until Afghanistan has an Islamic government.

ODonnell-Lynne-foreign-policy-columnist
ODonnell-Lynne-foreign-policy-columnist
Lynne O’Donnell
By , a columnist at Foreign Policy and an Australian journalist and author.
An Afghan boy looks on in a damaged house near the site of an attack in Kabul.
An Afghan boy looks on in a damaged house near the site of an attack in Kabul.
An Afghan boy looks on in a damaged house near the site of an attack in Kabul on July 29, 2019. Noorullah Shirzada/AFP via Getty Images

Leaving Afghanistan

Postwar Afghanistan, in the eyes of the Taliban, will be a law-abiding country, a member of the community of nations, open for business, and at peace with itself, its neighbors, and the rest of the world. But the sexes will be strictly segregated, women will be forced to wear hijabs, and freedom of speech and expression will become memories. This is the Taliban’s vision for a post-conflict Afghanistan, as explained by the group’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. In the meantime, he said in an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy, the insurgents will continue to fight to establish what he calls an “Islamic government.”

Lynne O’Donnell is a columnist at Foreign Policy and an Australian journalist and author. She was the Afghanistan bureau chief for Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press between 2009 and 2017.

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