White House refused to call Taliban a terrorist organization

News, US February 5, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

On 28 January’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz refused to call Taliban a terrorist organization.

“They do carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism. They do pursue terror attacks in an effort to try to advance their agenda,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained, but “they have a different classification.”

Earnest further explained, because they are “different than an organization like Al-Qaeda that has a much broader global aspiration to carry out acts of violence and acts of terror against Americans and American interests all around the globe.”

Deputy press secretary Eric Schultz also wouldn’t call the Taliban a terrorist group, instead referring to it as “an armed insurgency.”

“The Taliban is still conducting terrorist attacks. You can’t really say the war has ended as far as they are concerned,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl said at the briefing.

“Well, I’d also point out that the Taliban is an armed insurgency, ISIL is a terrorist group. So, we don’t make concessions to terrorist groups,” Schultz said.

“You don’t think the Taliban is a terrorist group?” Karl asked.

“I don’t think that the Taliban, um, uh — the Taliban is an armed insurgency. This was the winding down of the war in Afghanistan and that’s why this arrangement was dealt,” Schultz responded.

ABC