On the day the US marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban sent its own ‘message’ by raising its large flag over the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on Saturday.
The Taliban’s cultural commission spokesman Ahmadullahh Muttaqi announced Saturday that the raising of the flag was part of a ceremony to mark the start of the new Taliban government over Afghanistan.
“The Taliban’s new Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund raised the flag in a ceremony at 11 a.m. local time to mark the official start of work by the Taliban’s 33-member caretaker government,” The Associated Press reported of the event.
The group which the US fought in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks also painted their flag of jihad over the US Embassy in Kabul, which had been quickly abandoned in the days prior to the last US troops leaving Afghanistan on Aug.30.
“Earlier, another Taliban official said the religious militia’s black and white flag was first raised at the palace on Friday,” AP continues. “The militant group has also painted their banner on the entry gate to the US Embassy building.”
It was on Tuesday that the Taliban named and confirmed its caretaker government, complete with an Interior Minister who is still on the FBI’s ‘most wanted’ terrorism list. The Saturday ceremony officially inaugurates the government, but the symbolism of the timing couldn’t be clearer nor more ironic.
Afghan women at a pro-Taliban protest on 9/11 wore full burkas and shouted “death to America” as they marched with Taliban fighters standing guard. pic.twitter.com/S8XwwH6wo7
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 11, 2021
The Islamic ‘shahada’ – or Muslim confession of faith – was earlier plastered in large script over the entrance to the US embassy in Kabul…
An Afghan Taliban photograph of its messaging and a giant shahada banner at the abandoned U.S. embassy in Kabul: pic.twitter.com/VoYvecMZgu
— Christopher Anzalone (@IbnSiqilli) September 7, 2021
The formal raising of the black and white Taliban flag over Kabul’s government buildings took place simultaneous to the US holding somber memorial commemorations at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 went down after al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked it.
