Kabul ( CNN ) -- The Taliban have accused the United States of killing tens of thousands of Afghans and brutally torturing others in a defiant statement marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks against the United States . The statement accuses the United States of using the September 11 attacks as a pretext for violence against Muslims . It says the Afghan people have `` an endless stamina for a long war '' and could rise up as a nation `` to send the Americans to the dustbin of history . '' `` It will remain a permanent stigma on the face of the Western democracy that America and her allies martyred tens of thousands of Muslims under the pretext of this ambiguous and murky event , '' the statement says , referring to 9/11 . Children , old men , women and babies are among the victims of U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan , which also destroy homes , villages and orchards `` under the unjustified name of war on terror , '' the Taliban say . The statement comes as the United States remembers the events of 10 years ago and intelligence officials warn of a `` credible '' threat of another attack on U.S. soil . U.S. and international forces have been battling the Taliban in Afghanistan for almost a decade , with the loss of almost 2,700 lives across the coalition , more than 1,700 of them American . Figures released by the United Nations mission in Afghanistan for the first six months of this year showed 1,462 civilians had died , with anti-government insurgents responsible for 80 % of the killings . While air strikes were the leading cause of civilian deaths at the hands of international forces , the majority of those who died as a result of insurgent action were killed by homemade explosive devices and suicide attacks , the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan report said . The U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 , within weeks of the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. , as American forces sought al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden . The Taliban were forced from government soon afterward but continue to lead the insurgency against NATO-led forces in Afghanistan . Taliban leaders granted bin Laden sanctuary in Afghanistan for several years , despite U.S. requests for his extradition over previous terror attacks , and declined to hand him over when he became the main suspect in the 9/11 attacks . The Taliban , Islamic fundamentalists who come mainly from Afghanistan 's Pashtun ethnic group , rose to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal from the country . They gave bin Laden , exiled from his native Saudi Arabia , a safe haven in Afghanistan from 1996 and allowed his al Qaeda followers to live and set up training camps there . CNN 's Matiullah Mati contributed to this report .
The Taliban accuse the U.S. of `` shedding the blood of more than 1,700 of Afghan . The terror attacks of almost a decade are a murky pretext for the violence , they say . The Afghans people have the stamina to fight on , the Taliban say . U.S. and coalition forces have been battling the Taliban for September 11 .