Taliban encourage suicide bombers and offer money and land to their families
Taliban encourage suicide bombers and offer money and land to their families
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According to a statement from the Taliban’s interior ministry, suicide bombers who perished in the struggle against the old government and its Western backers were honoured and their families were awarded cash and land pledges.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interim interior minister, addressed the families at a ceremony at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, which was also targeted by suicide bombers in 2018. He is wanted by the US for $10 million as a “specially designated global terrorist.”

His face was concealed in official images taken on Tuesday.

“In his speech, the minister lauded the martyrs’ and Mujahidin’s sacrifices and referred to them as heroes of Islam and the country,” the ministry stated on Twitter.

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According to spokesman Qari Sayeed Khosti, families of suicide bombers were given clothing, 10,000 afghani ($111), and property plots.

Haqqani succeeded his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as leader of the Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated insurgent organisation blamed by Western intelligence services for some of the war’s worst suicide bombings.

He is wanted by the FBI for interrogation in connection with a 2008 incident in Kabul that killed six people, including an American citizen.

Following the Taliban’s August triumph over the Western-backed government, Islamic State militants have carried out a series of suicide attacks against mosques and other targets, killing hundreds of civilians.