As global pressure mounts on the Taliban and their senior leaders, Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, has called on their members to remain steadfast in the face of foreign scrutiny.
In an audio message broadcast by Taliban-controlled National Television, Hanafi urged followers to practice “patience, perseverance, and piety” in response to external pressures.
“In the face of any enemy plots and pressures, we must rely on perseverance, patience, and piety,” he said, adding that the Taliban had endured “the most difficult” challenges over the past two decades.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Washington is prepared to impose further measures against the Taliban, including placing a larger bounty on their leaders than the one previously offered for Osama bin Laden, the former Al Qaeda chief.
In a post on X, Rubio said he had learned that the Taliban were holding more American citizens hostage than previously reported.
“If this news is true, we must immediately set a much bigger bounty on their leaders—bigger than Bin Laden’s,” he wrote.
His remarks come amid reports that the Taliban have detained several U.S. citizens in Afghanistan, though the exact number remains unclear.
Separately, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, has requested arrest warrants for Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group’s chief justice, on charges of crimes against humanity and gender-based persecution, particularly targeting Afghan women and girls.
In response, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi condemned the move as “unjust.”
Following his return to the White House, President Donald J. Trump signed executive orders suspending most U.S. aid to Afghanistan.
Rubio later clarified that humanitarian assistance would be exempt from the suspension, but the shift in policy has already affected Afghanistan’s economy. The value of the Afghan currency has fallen against the U.S. dollar, further straining the country’s financial markets.
