The Afghan Taliban has denounced the so-called Islamic Scholars conferences in Asia and the Middle East as an "American process" and urged clerics to reject the gatherings.
The Taliban says in a statement Tuesday the U.S. first gathered religious scholars for a conference in Indonesia in May, and have since organized similar conferences in Kabul, Islamabad, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
No date has been set for a conference in Saudi Arabia.
The Taliban consider the conferences to be anti-Islamic and led by the U.S., the group said in the statement. It says the U.S. is using them to seek justification for its "military occupation" of Afghanistan.
"The Islamic Emirate urges religious scholars to reject these conferences which are a scheme of the invaders," it said.