Kabul Police spokesperson confirmed that the video was genuine.
The Taliban in Afghanistan were recently spotted patrolling the streets of Kabul on rollerblades while carrying AK-47 rifles. In a video doing rounds on the internet, members of the Taliban were seen skating between traffic, alongside a moving truck. The members were also wearing camouflaged suits and directing traffic on the road, as per a report in The Telegraph.
Kabul Police spokesperson spoke to the outlet and confirmed that the video was genuine. He said that the video showed officers from public security police, operating under the Ministry of Interior.
One of the members of the Taliban security team, Muslim Afghan, stated that he had also observed the skating skills of young members of the organisation. "It was really fun- amazing balance and body strength. It might be common in the world elsewhere, but for us, it was rare to see on the roads of Kabul," he told the outlet.
The original video was shared on YouTube on November 11 by Yadullah Marvi, a "parkour athlete" in Afghanistan. The description of the 22-minute-long video reads, "The first part of the military performance of figure skating in the streets of Kabul."
"In this video, the movements of our figure skaters were filmed, and people's reactions were also filmed, and this is the first part of the video. Wait for the next parts!" the user wrote.
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan as the US withdrew from the region in July 2021. In the two years since, Taliban authorities have imposed their strict interpretation of Islam, with women bearing the brunt of laws the United Nations has termed "gender apartheid".
In December last year, Taliban officials announced a ban on women from educational institutes and it drew widespread condemnation from foreign governments and the United Nations. "You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice," Minister for Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem said in a letter issued to all government and private universities last year.
The Taliban enforced the restriction, claiming that female students disregarded a stringent dress code and a necessity to be accompanied to and from university campuses by a male relative. The majority of colleges and universities had already implemented gender-specific entrances, classrooms and policies permitting only older men or women professors to teach female students, according to the outlet.
Women in the country have also been banned from going to parks, gyms, fairs, salons and must cover themselves in public. Many have also been removed from their government jobs.