Taliban doesn’t want fighting inside Afghan cities: Senior leader

Group says ‘fighting from mountains and deserts has reached the doors of cities’, but it does not want to fight there.

The Taliban does not want to engage in fighting inside Afghanistan’s cities, a senior leader of the group has said, as thousands of families flee their homes, fearful of living under their rule. “Now that the fighting from mountains and deserts has reached the doors of the cities, Mujahiddin don’t want fighting inside the city,” Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a message tweeted by a Taliban spokesman on Tuesday. “It is better … to use any possible channel to get in touch with our invitation and guidance commission, reach a logical agreement to prevent their cities from getting damaged,” said Muttaqi, head of a commission that oversees people surrendering to the group.