Eli Lake, Columnist

The Taliban Are Only Pretending They Aren’t Barbaric

The terrorist group’s promises that they have changed are discredited by events on the ground.

August 17, 2021 at 10:15 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Taliban fighters near Zanbaq Square in Kabul on Aug. 16.
Photographer: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP

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The Taliban would like the world to know that they’re no longer the child-bride-marrying mass murderers that they used to be.

At a press conference Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said there would be no reprisals against Afghans who worked with the U.S. military. Women would be free to work and study, and the media free to broadcast what it wished, so long as both stayed “within our cultural frameworks.” How enlightened.