Taliban leader says attacks outside of Afghanistan are not "meritorious struggle"

Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has warned the Afghan mujahideen that any attack outside the country will not be considered a meritorious struggle (jihad), Defense Minister of Afghan Taliban Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid said.

In his state-television address to members of the Afghan security forces, cited by France's Le Figaro, the minister said the supreme leader believes that fighting outside of Afghanistan's borders is not a religiously sanctioned jihad, but just a war.

The publication focuses on the fact that this statement followed accusations by Pakistan of involvement of “Afghan citizens” in suicide attacks on Pakistani territory. Last Wednesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif accused Afghans of assisting suicide bombers in committing terrorist attacks in his country. However, he did not directly mention the Taliban regime, but pointed to strangers “from the other side of the border.”

A suicide bombing on July 30 during a congress of supporters of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (designated as terrorist and banned in the Russian Federation) in the Pakistani Bajaur district near the border with Afghanistan killed at least 54 people. Members of the Pakistani branch of ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

Le Figaro notes that since the Taliban takeover two years ago, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, taking place mainly in areas bordering Afghanistan.