On January 10, 2023, a video was posted to the RTA Pashto channel on YouTube in which the head of a Muslim scholars’ delegation visiting the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Egyptian Islamist scholar Dr. Mohamed Al-Sagheer said that after “defeating” the U.S., the Taliban has effectively prevented the cultivation of drugs in Afghanistan. He said that the American “occupation” had supplied drugs to the world and used them to kill Afghans, and he claimed that several million Afghans have become drug addicts. In addition, he said that the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate has decided to “cleanse” Afghanistan of extremism and has dealt powerful blows to ISIS, which he said was sponsored by the American “occupation.”

The delegation of Islamic religious scholars from Muslim countries traveled to Afghanistan in January 2023 and met with senior officials from the Afghan Taliban government, including Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, deputy prime ministers, and others, according to Afghan newspapers and social media posts.