The Taliban declared that the war in Afghanistan was over and that all of their opponents would be pardoned during their first press conference since seizing control of Kabul from the Western-backed government.
“We don’t want any internal or external enemies,” the Taliban’s main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said.
The Taliban pledge a secure Afghanistan as part of a public relations campaign aimed at persuading world powers and a fearful population that they have reformed.
The Taliban have attempted to present themselves as more moderate than when they established a harsh rule in the late 1990s, following a rapid advance throughout Afghanistan that saw major cities fall to the militants without a struggle.
The organisation had previously declared a “amnesty” across Afghanistan and asked women to join its administration, in an attempt to calm anxieties in a tense capital city where hundreds had flocked to the city’s international airport in a desperate attempt to flee the day before.
(With inputs from agencies)