Taliban spokesman complains about being supposedly tricked into doing interview with Israeli TV news

On Wednesday, The Times of Israelreported that Suhail Shaheen, the spokesman for the Taliban, is complaining that the Israeli network Kan invited him on, and he was tricked into giving an interview without realizing that the organization was Israeli.

"Suhail Shaheen, who has been giving interviews in English from Qatar since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan, said he had no idea that he was speaking to someone from an Israeli news organization," reported Philissa Cramer. "The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, has a history of supporting al-Qaeda, which routinely makes threats against Israel and uses anti-Israel rhetoric in its propaganda. When Shaheen spoke over video with journalist Roi Kais at Kan, the Israeli broadcaster, Kais named his network but did not tell Shaheen that he or it was Israeli."

During the course of the interview, as part of a recent public relations blitz, Shaheen promised that the Taliban would respect the rights of non-Muslim minorities, and denied that the organization has any ties to Hamas, the Iranian-backed militia that controls the Gaza Strip.

"I do many interviews with journalists every day after the falling of provincial centers of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul to the Islamic Emirate," wrote Shaheen in a tweet after the interview sparked surprise. "Some journalists maybe masquerading but I haven't done interview with any one introducing himself he is from an Israeli media."

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