Afghanistan's Taliban rulers are making intense efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon to solidify their control over the nation, according to Rahmatullah Nabil, who headed its intelligence services during the previous democratically elected government of exiled President Ashraf Ghani.
According to Nabil, the Taliban's fixation with nuclear weapons comes from its top leadership, which views them as a symbol of an advanced military power.
"I have reports indicating that a group of the Taliban is looking into how to access tactical nuclear weapons. Whether they can get them from Pakistan or pay engineers to get them," he said during the Herat Security Dialogue at Dushanbe.
The Herat Security Dialogue is an annual event where the participants discuss the ever-evolving situation in Afghanistan.
"They [the Taliban regime] have the desire, [and are having] discussions on how to get there, how others are doing it [developing tactical nuclear weapons]," Nabil added.
The former chief of Afghanistan's spy agency also blamed the United States for the Taliban's rising interest in obtaining nuclear weapons because the movement's members have access to sophisticated military equipment that the US and its allies left in the Central Asian sovereign state.
Earlier, reports of US weapons left in Afghanistan falling into the hands of radical organizations in Palestine emerged following the Hamas attack on Israel last month.
Even the son of former US President Donald Trump posed tough questions to the Joe Biden administration after pictures of Palestinians holding the American-made M4 assault rifles spread like wildfire on the internet.
*under UN sanctions
*under UN sanctions