The Taliban on Wednesday warned of serious consequences if the United States continued to fly drones over Afghanistan’s airspace.
"The U.S. has violated all international rights and laws as well as its commitments made to the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, with the operation of these drones in Afghanistan," the Taliban said in a statement on Twitter.
"We call on all countries, especially the United States, to treat Afghanistan in light of international rights, laws and commitments … in order to prevent any negative consequences."
The Taliban had earlier raised objections to the drone strikes carried out by the US in August in retaliation against the ISIS-K suicide attack at the Kabul airport in which 13 US military personnel were killed along with close to 200 civilians.
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President Biden has said that the US is still not finished with ISIS and would hunt down the killers who masterminded the Kabul airport attack. The execution of such a plan would involve the deployment of drones which is why the Taliban appears to have issued the warning.
Although Taliban leaders deny Islamic State and al Qaeda militants are still active in the country, the series of attacks carried out against the Taliban in Jalalabad recently clearly contradict these claims. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for these bomb attacks.
The second drone strike by the US in Kabul had turned out to be a major tragedy as 10 civilians were killed in the attack on a car suspected to belong to ISIS-K terrorists.
The issue had also figured at the US Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. General McKenzie told lawmakers that he took responsibility for the August 9 drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians.
"We acted based on the intelligence read that we saw on the ground. We acted several times on intelligence that we saw, and we were successful on other occasions in preventing attacks," he said. "This time, tragically, we were wrong."
At the time, the U.S. said the attack killed ISIS-K terrorists. The group was responsible for the attack near Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members who were aiding in the evacuation efforts.
