Our politicians and media are treating the Taliban’s pronouncements as if the group can be held to account
There were some curious juxtapositions in Afghanistan last week. On the one hand, the under-19 Afghan cricket team was allowed to leave for a planned tournament in Bangladesh, as if things were normal, while on the other there was a sinister military parade taking place in Kandahar this week. After the lines of horsemen in flowing white robes, a deliberate image of Islamic warrior superiority, came the fleets of captured Humvees. And at the side of the procession lay a car packed with a bomb, suicide vest, and large plastic bottles of explosives from a roadside bomb.
The same grifters who lied for 20 years have found a new lie.
