Suicide bombers given key role in new Taliban army

I saw this is in a tweet yesterday, by Natiq Malikzada a freelance journalist, but I couldn’t find the statement he refers to in RTE/RT or anything else in the English language. Most of his source is in Urdu or Arabic. But the Times has it this morning. 

Natiq Malikzada said 

Office for suicide bombings in the #Taliban Ministry of Defense. Yesterday #Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told RFE/RL that the #Taliban new army will also have a unit for suicide bombings to take part in special operations.

I can’t imagine that the career progression in the Suicide Unit will be very promising, other than the direct route to paradise. Hopefully the pension for the widows and mothers will be excellent.

The Times reports “Our mujahidin who are martyrdom brigades will also be part of the army but they will be special forces,” Mujahid told Radio Free Europe. “These forces will be under the control the Ministry of Defence and will be used for special operations.”

A photograph from inside the ministry showed a sign above a desk reading “Office of the Martyrdom Brigade.”

The deputy leader and interior minister is Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the notorious Haqqani network, which pioneered the use of complex suicide bombings and was responsible for some of the most devastating mass-casualty attacks. Those included the 2018 suicide bombing of the interior ministry that killed 95 and wounded 185, and the 2019 bombing of a Shia wedding party in Kabul, killing 63 and wounding 183.

In October Haqqani, a globally proscribed terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head, hosted a lavish reception for male relatives of dead Taliban suicide bombers, saying that their blood was the foundation on which the “Islamic Emirate” had been rebuilt. His face was blacked out in official photographs of him giving cash and promises of land to the bombers’ families.

From the Scottish Sun

The extremist group released disturbing new footage of some of its followers parading a Taliban flag around an undisclosed base in Afghanistan. In the new video, which was played on Afghan National Television, it was explained the weapons were used “against invaders and their puppets in defence of independence and dear country”.

Suicide vests, explosives, mines, car bombs, guns and rockets were also featured in the showcase.

The video comes amid reports the Taliban have launched a specalised squadron known as the ‘Mansoor army’ to be deployed at the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Suhaib Saeed, a member of the suicide-specific Badri 313 unit, told TRT World: “The first thing for becoming a member is to be a martyrdom seeker. “We all want to be martyrs in the way of Allah.”

Training lasts between 40 days and six months and involves intensive education in tactical work and religious studies as well as weapons and physical exercise. All this happens in a former primary school where girls once received an education.