Mohammad Ismail Khan, a former commander of popular resistance forces during the final days of the republic, has called for changing Afghanistan’s current situation “by any means necessary” so that the people can achieve a government that is “just, compassionate, competent, and committed.”
Speaking on the anniversary of Herat’s fall to the Taliban, Khan said the group entered the city through “bloodshed, killings, and conspiracies.”
He asserted that despite the emergence of local resistance in the southwest, “complex intrigues and traitorous deals dragged Afghanistan into a dangerous and destructive regression.”
Khan, a senior figure in Jamiat-e Islami who was captured by the Taliban when Herat fell, said the group’s actions over the past four years have proven the “legitimacy” of his and his comrades’ struggle.
In a Facebook post earlier today, he wrote: “The Taliban—those whose hands had been stained for nearly thirty years with the pure blood of hundreds of thousands of this country’s free and honorable sons, and who never heeded the Qur’anic call al-sulh khayr (reconciliation is best)—took Herat through false claims of piety and scholarship, but with bloodshed, killings, and the help of multiple conspiracies.”
Herat, following Nimroz and Sheberghan, fell to the Taliban on August 12, 2021, while local forces led by Ismail Khan were still fighting. Just three days later, the Taliban entered Kabul.
