The Taliban, Afghanistan's notoriously fundamentalist rulers, have taken to comparing Kabul to Jerusalem, building a replica of the Dome of the Rock in their capital and publishing an article in their official Arabic-language monthly magazine, Al-Somood, describing the ties with the "sister city."
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According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), issue No. 196 of the magazine included an article comparing Kabul to Jerusalem, and hailing a recent move by the Kabul municipality to build a replica of the holy site, third in Islam only to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
The facility, inaugurated on May 18, was built in the Kampani area of Kabul. It stands 17 meters long and nine meters tall, and its purpose is "the enrichment of Islamic values and culture," according to a municipality's Twitter post.
The Al-Somood writer argues that Kabul was the first of the two cities to achieve liberation when freed from "the oppressive American occupation that lasted 20 years."
The article asserts that the replica represents the unity of the Islamic nation and serves as a "reminder of the dangers, threats and repeated violations to which Al-Haram Al-Sharif [the Arabic name for the Temple Mount containing the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque] has been exposed."
According to MEMRI, several Islamic State supporters criticized the project.
A pro-ISIS media outlet, the Al-Adiyat Foundation, printed a poster arguing that the building of a Dome of the Rock model had initially been proposed by Libya's f0rmer leader Moammar Gaddafi and was widely mocked at the time.
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After the Taliban siezed control of the country on Aug. 15, 2021, they rolled back women's rights advances and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort – and are systematically revoking any human rigthts achievements in the country.
JNS.org contributed to this report.
