Saturday November 14, 2015
Kabul (BNA) In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Dear brothers and sisters,
Dear countrymen,
I express my profound grief and sadness over the martyrdom of our countrymen in Zabul, who were beheaded at the hands of criminal and extremist elements in a tragic and distressing way; I partake of the tremendous grief of the families of the victims. This is not the tragedy of one community or tribe; this is the tragedy of Afghanistan. This is the shared pain of a nation. This is a dagger that our enemies want to strike into the heart of our unity and solidarity.
Our people, from the east of the country to its west, from north to south, are distressed because of this incident; they are in pain and disgusted because such an atrocious crime has been committed against their fellow countrymen. This is not the only tragic crime of its kind that our enemies have committed; every day we witness in every corner of this country – Badakhshan, Nangarhar, Helmand, Faryab, Kunduz or Paktya, people getting martyred and others getting wounded and mourning of bereaved families.
Our enemies want to tarnish our unity and harmony by creating incidents that they will then give an ethnic or regional coating. They have seen that they have been defeated in other fronts; they have seen that their blind logic does not have a place in this country; they have seen that their war does not produce any results other than their own disgraceful defeat; they have seen that they do not have the ability to confront our brave soldiers; the soldiers who are made up of Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen, Pashaee, Nuristani, Baloch and all other tribes of the country and who like a solid foundation stand against the criminals, against these mercenaries, against the tyrants, against the dark-minded, against the brutes and vandals, and against the sworn enemies of this land and water, and bravely defend the homes and properties of their nation and bring down their powerful fist upon the heads of the terrorists.
Over the entire current year, our enemies attempted to gain some geographic territory to establish their dark rule; they exhausted all efforts to take control of territories so that they could transform them into a nest for their savagery and barbaric acts; they tried to find a way to reenact their reprehensible rule like before in a corner of this country and turn that into a sanctuary and scene for more of their crimes; they wanted to spread the flame of war and insecurity to every part of the country that they could reach.
Now that it is certain that they have been defeated in all these areas and their ominous hopes have collapsed, they have pinned the rest of their hope on one thing and that is sowing the seed of division and discord among the tribes of this country. They know that they cannot win over our people by force and that until the unity and stability of this nation remains intact, they will not bow to any power. To that end, today, all their destructive efforts are focused on sowing division and discord among us.
They deliberately and malevolently commit crimes to spark the flame of internal hostility among our people. They now hope that passions and emotions take over, the room for contemplation and reflection narrows down, and the environment becomes conducive for their mischief.
Dear countrymen,
While we are mourning (the death of) innocent Shukria and her fellow travelers and feel to the depth of our being the viciousness of this crime, we should ensure that our enemy’s satanic plot fails. We should not forget that we can avenge our martyrs, arrest and punish the perpetrators of such crimes, and ensure justice when we are all together; our victory is in our unity and harmony.
Compatriots, brothers and sisters,
In the beginning of the abduction, I gave a direct order that all the possible efforts are exhausted to protect the lives of the abductees and rescue them from the enemy’s clutches. I was personally following the course of events. You might have heard through the news that over 90 of the terrorists were killed in the first rescue operation. Those of our defense forces who got martyred during the operation were from the diverse tribes of this country. In a different operation that was conducted with the resolute support of the international forces, several other criminals were eliminated. During this time, the enemy transferred the abductees over 56 times to escape the reach of our forces and the coverage of our operation. It was during these operations that 19 of the hostages were rescued in one turn and another 8 were freed in another turn. After the recent atrocious incident, I directed the officials to exhaust every effort to ensure that the perpetrators of this crime are identified, arrested and subjected to maximum punishment. The pain of all those who have lost their dears, whether they are in Jaghori, Yahyakheil, Helmand, Warduj, Faryab or Ghor, is my pain; it is the shared pain of our nation. Like you, I will not stay still unless the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice. I have also ordered that all the necessary measures-within the means of your government-are taken to secure the highways and prevent recurrence of such incidents. We are determined to avenge the blood of our countrymen and we will exhaust all our efforts in this regard. But we should remember that all this will be possible providing that we overcome our emotions and abstain from reacting in a way that would bring about disorder or irrigate the seeds of discord that our enemies sow.
Dear countrymen,
The bitter experiences that we went through in the 70s during the internal wars and the bitter experience that the innocent people of Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria go through nowadays remind us that in governance keeping order and strengthening rule of law as well as fighting fitna, insecurity and rebellion is the only successful way. Every such kind of unreasonable and emotional act that would endanger rule of law and pave the ground for chaos is in fact aiding those enemies who, in order to commit more crimes, seek to create a gap of trust between the people and the government, and want destruction of Afghanistan.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I reiterate my commitment to you that we shall avenge the blood of our martyrs from the Daesh, Taliban and every other terrorist group that is complicit in these crimes. We are also committed more than ever to realizing social justice at all levels of the society and we will endeavor to eliminate discrimination in every part of the country. We do not want to witness any more deprivations in Ghor, Paktya, Badakshan, Kunar, Daikondi, Urozgan or any other parts of the country. We do not want any of our countrymen to feel being subjected to discrimination. We wish that our martyr’s blood strengthen our national bond and guide us to a future that contains fewer pains and sufferings than today. We want peace, stability and progress in our dear country, Afghanistan; may the crimes that the enemies commit to divide us, bring us further unity and brotherhood and as such the enemies of our homeland fail to achieve their goals.
