KABUL: The Taliban government wants to increase forces by a third. As well as they want to build anti-aircraft missile capacity, the army chief told Reuters.
The Taliban, which gained power in 2021, has defence ambitions despite foreign criticism of its policies. Said policies includes women’s work and education limitations, that have prevented diplomatic recognition.
Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat, a Taliban commander from Badakhshan and army head, criticised foreign drone incursions into Afghan airspace on Tuesday.
While, He was sitting in his office in the highly protected defence ministry in Kabul, the capital. He said he wanted to raise the army by 50,000.
“The ministry of defence is the top-ranked in the budget,” he said, adding that it received a substantially bigger sum than other ministries since it was a priority in the budget, which is mostly funded by increased tax and customs revenue.
Moreover, The Taliban have spent 1.5 years creating a civilian government and national military from an insurgent group that fought a 20-year war against foreign forces and the previous US-backed Afghan government.
After financial sanctions and development funding cuts, the government has no foreign recognition.
Drones and other breaches into Afghan airspace were Fitrat’s top defence priority.
“Anti-aircraft missiles are the need of countries,” he added, adding that all nations wanted weapons to protect their territory and airspace, a challenge Afghanistan faced.
“There is no doubt that Afghanistan is trying, and doing its best, to have it.”
Fitrat did not specify where authorities were seeking anti-aircraft missiles.
