Taliban mocks U.S. government shutdown

Staff and wire reports | USA TODAY

Even the Taliban is mocking the federal government shutdown.

The terrorist group that is fighting U.S. troops to return to power in Afghanistan accused politicians of "sucking the blood of their own people," reported Agence France-Presse and Al-Arabiya news service.

"The American people should realize that their politicians play with their destinies as well as the destinies of other oppressed nations for the sake of their personal vested interests," said the statement issued by the Taliban.

The White House ordered U.S. federal agencies last week to shut down and allow only "essential" employees to keep working after the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that fund the government but defunds Obamacare. The GOP-controlled House is asking President Obama to negotiate through the standoff, but he and the Democrat-controlled Senate have refused.

The Taliban, an Islamic clerical movement that ran a brutal regime based on religious law in Afghanistan before it was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion, blamed "selfish and empty-minded American leaders" for the shutdown.

It said U.S. politicians were guilty of taking U.S. citizens' money "earned with great difficulty" and then "lavishly spending the same money in shedding the blood of the innocent and oppressed people."

"Instead of sucking the blood of their own people... this money should be utilized for the sake of peace," it said, an apparent reference to the money spent keeping it from power.