The Taliban remembered the 18 year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan by referring to an interview with its founder and first emir, Mullah Mohammad Omar, in which he predicted that the Taliban would outlast the U.S. In that same interview, Omar also steadfastly refused to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban commemorated the U.S. invasion in an article titled “7th October: A Black Day in the history of Afghanistan,” which was released today on its official website, Voice of Jihad. In the article, the author refers to Omar’s interview with Voice of America, which was published at The Guardian on Sept. 26, 2001, less than two weeks prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
In that interview, Omar notes that he is considering two “promises,” and that he believes the Taliban would prevail over the U.S. Omar’s statement on the two “promises,” below, is directly quoted in today’s article.