Top Taliban defects.

last updated 8 January 2015

Kabul

A former top propagandist for the Taliban has defected to the Afghan government. Mullah Mohammed Ishaq Nizami ran the Voice of Sharia from 1996 to 2001, while the Taliban was in charge. Most Afghans know his voice well from the many radio speeches he gave praising then-leader Mullah Omar. Nizami returned to Kabul from Pakistan to accept the government’s offer of amnesty, an offer 2,000 other ex-Taliban have already taken. A Taliban spokesman confirmed the defection, saying Nizami was “mentally sick” and “not an important person.” It now appears Nizami may not have been as hard-line as the regime he served. Even though music and movies were banned under the Taliban, Nizami preserved much of the country’s music and film archives.