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Taliban praise Biden for pushing their propaganda – analysis

Taliban claim Biden’s lie that Al Qaeda isn’t in Afghanistan proves their innocence.

By Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Magazine

When in doubt lie, then lie some more.

During his statement opposing the Supreme Court’s decision preventing him from hijacking a post 9/11 military relief bill, the Heroes Act, to appropriate over $500 billion to selectively bailout student loan borrowers, Biden was asked about the disaster in Afghanistan after the release of the State Department’s report.

And he responded in typical fashion. By lying.

Q. Mr. President, do you admit failure in Afghanistan? Mistakes? There was a — there was a report on Afghanistan withdrawal, saying there was failure, mistakes. Do you admit there was mistakes during the withdrawal and before?

THE PRESIDENT: No, no. All the evidence is coming back. Do you remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaeda would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right.

Thanks.

What definition of right is that? Even the UN acknowledges that Al Qaeda is integrated with the Taliban leadership.

“With the patronage of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda members have received appointments and advisory roles in the Taliban security and administrative structures,” the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said in the report earlier in June. It called relations between the Taliban and al-Qaida “strong and symbiotic.”

According to the report, an estimated 400 al-Qaeda fighters were in Afghanistan, and there are signs that the terrorist group “is rebuilding operational capability.”

Whom is Biden quoting when he claims that the Taliban are helping and that Al Qaeda isn’t there? The Taliban.

Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi also rejected the presence of any terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

“There are no terrorist groups in Afghanistan. They cannot operate in the country, and we don’t let them operate in Afghanistan,” he said at an event in May organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad.

Now the Taliban are claiming that Biden proved them right.

The Afghan Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Saturday that US President Joe Biden’s statements concerning the “non-existence of armed groups in Afghanistan” is “an acknowledgment of reality,” referring to the US president’s remarks about Al-Qaeda not being a threat in the region.

Biden’s statement “refutes the recent report by UN Sanctions Monitoring Team alleging the presence and operation of over twenty armed groups in Afghanistan,” the ministry added. “The Islamic Emirate maintains the policy of not allowing anyone to use the soil of Afghanistan to harm others. Our actions in this regard are not due to the requests or support of anyone, including America.”

Bill Rogio of Long War points out that’s obvious nonsense.

Any illusion that Al Qaeda was no longer operating in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of the country on Aug. 15, 2021 should have melted away in July 2022, when the U.S killed Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri in a drone strike in Kabul. Not only was Zawahiri sheltering in the Afghan capital, he was living in a posh safe house run by a lieutenant of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s Minister of Interior who also serves as one of the group’s two deputy emirs.

The UN report went even further in documenting Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan. According to the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, Al Qaeda is currently operating training camps in six Afghan provinces: Helmand, Zabul, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Badghis, and Kunar, where Al Qaeda is training members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Al Qaeda is also running safe houses in Farah, Helmand, Herat and Kabul provinces, as well as a media operations center in Herat.

This is in violation of the totally worthless peace agreement that we should never have participated in.

Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA that by appointing “double-hatted” al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Baryal, who killed American troops, the Taliban “are openly flouting” the so-called peace agreement.

He said the Taliban “always lied” about their ties with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, and that the group’s statements cannot be “trusted.”

Meanwhile, Biden is pushing Taliban propaganda. Biden’s latest lie shows that the complicity with the Taliban during the botched retreat was no accident.