Pakistan wants Taliban to rule Afghanistan, says brother of former Afghan President

Sediqullah Rahi, brother of former President of Afghanistan, Dr Najibullah, has said that Pakistan is backing the Taliban to topple the elected government in Kabul.

Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the 43rd session of UN Human Rights in Geneva, Sediqullah said the recent Afghan peace deal between the US and the Taliban is against the will of the people of Afghanistan.

“Who supported the Taliban since the day they came to Afghanistan into a political environment or political life of Afghan people? They are the military militia of the ISI, the intelligence agency of Pakistan. They (the Taliban) are representing the Pakistani military will,” Sediqullah said.

“The peace treaty that the group signed with the United States, I am not believing them. I do not agree with them and neither does anybody in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan are very upset over this deal and the intellectual elements in my country, in my society, are totally against the Taliban,” said Sediqullah, who now lives in the United States.

“The Taliban is a fanatic group in Afghanistan, a religious fanatic (group). The people of Afghanistan do not want them and they do not agree with them. The Afghan people want a sacred country. Afghan society is an Islamic society but unfortunately, Pakistan wants to rule them under this banner,” he said, referring to the Taliban, adding that the Taliban is one such group that could represent the interest of Pakistan in Afghanistan.

On February 29, the United States and the Taliban signed a deal in Doha to end the nearly two-decade-old conflict in Afghanistan that began after the September 11 attacks.

The agreement lays out a timetable for the final withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan.

Sediqullah said that the Afghan peace deal agreed upon without the participation of the Afghan government and the people of Afghanistan was unacceptable.

He said: “All the patriots in Afghanistan are rejecting this deal. This is not the Afghan people’s deal with the United States. They signed this deal and they talked about it behind the closed door. The Afghanistan people were not informed about all those issues that the United States talked about with the Taliban.”

Sediqullah’s elder brother, Dr Najibullah, the then President of Afghanistan and his younger brother Ahmadzai, were brutally killed by Pakistan-backed Taliban in 1996. Their dead bodies were dragged through the streets and were hanged in public to show the people that a new era had begun.

Sediqullah blamed Pakistan for the brutality and fears of a return of similar scenes once the US troops leave Afghanistan.Taking about the death of his brother, Sediqullah said, “Pakistani generals came in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul. That night they asked them about the Durand agreement and asked him to sign it again with Pakistan (so as) to give them a kind of legalisation of the Durand line. But my brother wasn’t ready to do that and for that reason they killed them. They killed both my brothers in Afghanistan.