Imran Khan: Under fire

There’s outrage over Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s statement in support of the Taleban.
Khan told reporters he believed the Taleban were fighting a jihad that was justified by Islamic law.

There’s outrage over Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s statement in support of the Taleban.
Khan told reporters he believed the Taleban were fighting a jihad that was justified by Islamic law. “It is clear that whoever is fighting for their freedom is fighting a jihad … The people who are fighting in Afghanistan against the foreign occupation are fighting a jihad.” Khan was speaking after visiting a hospital in Peshawar where a 14-year-old schoolgirl shot in the head by Taleban for supporting girls’ education was being treated
There were angry reactions in Kabul. Engineer Khalil Ahmad Nadem was scathing. “There is no hiding the hostility of Pakistan towards Afghanistan. But the words of this new politician are the limit!” he says. Khan is a publicity seeker, he adds. “He is no politician. He is not acquainted with the alphabets of politics. He has exposed himself as a strange person.”
According to Nadem, Khan’s views are the “statements of ISI”. Pakistan’s clandestine Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) have long had a hand in Afghanistan’s internal matters. Nadem says: “The statements of Khan were not his personal views … there are visible and invisible hands that want to use any trick to make Afghanistan insecure. This time Khan is in the service of Pakistani intelligence. The statements are not Khan’s but rather they are statements of ISI.”  
Mohammad Shah Amini, a student at Kateb University, worries about the impact of Khan’s comments on “people who don’t know the difference between jihad and non jihad.” The Ulema Council, a grouping of senior clerics, called Khan’s statements “unIslamic”. Council head Mawlawi Qiamuddin Kashaf told the media: “I am sure this person (Khan) does not know his prayer; does not know how to fulfill the prayer.”
Rahmatullah Ahmadzai at the Literature Faculty in Kabul University dismisses the statement as Khan’s attempt to get cheap publicity. “The cricketer wants to get into the presidential palace by playing on insecurities in Pakistan,” he says.
Member of Parliament (MP) Fawzia Kofi has urged parliament’s foreign relations commission to warn Pakistan against interfering in Afghanistan. Another MP, Nasiri, described the comments by the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) as an “insult to the people” of Afghanistan.