Is this a new Taliban?

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

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🗓️ 23 August 2021

⏱️ ? minutes

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Summary

The Taliban insists it has changed. Afghanistan’s future hinges on whether that’s true.

Frenzied evacuations from Afghanistan continue as the U.S. scrambles to meet its Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw all troops. But it’s still unclear what the country will look like after that. Taliban leaders say they will refrain from retaliatory violence and respect women’s rights. Griff Witte, The Post’s former Kabul bureau chief, evaluates those promises.

Transcript

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0:00.0	As Taliban leadership have become the focus of global attention, they have made themselves
0:06.8	out to be this kinder, gentler version of the group that came before.
0:10.8	The Taliban do not have any animosity against any person or individual.
0:26.8	And though they're saying that they harbor no animosity, that they'll forgive their opponents,
0:48.4	many of us are wondering, is this really a new Taliban?
0:53.0	In the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports.
0:56.1	I'm Martin Powers.
0:58.0	It's Monday, August 23rd.
1:02.2	Evacuations are continuing at the airport in Kabul.
1:04.8	On Sunday, the US military was able to fly out about 10,000 people.
1:09.2	Another 6,000 people were able to leave on coalition planes.
1:13.0	But the US is running up against a serious deadline.
1:16.6	The United States has promised that its troops will be out of the country by the end of
1:22.0	August, so a little over a week from now.
1:26.2	And yet there's still a very large number of people who need to be evacuated.
1:30.7	We don't know exactly how many, but certainly there are a large number of US citizens,
1:35.6	a large number of Afghans who helped the United States through the 20 years of US involvement
1:41.8	in Afghanistan.
1:43.7	And the United States has an obligation to get each and every one of those people who wants
1:48.0	to leave out of there.
1:50.7	And there is a time limit on it now.
1:53.9	Griff Wittie is a national reporter for the post and a former Kabul bureau chief.
	...

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