Taliban announces interim government, key posts have gone to those who led

More than a month after the fall of Kabul and the takeover of the country by the Taliban, a functioning “interim” government is finally in place. On September 7, after the brief show of defiance by the remnants of the former government in the Panjshir valley was dealt with, the Taliban announced the formation of an all-male Cabinet. That was not a surprise as the Taliban had said from the outset that women would not be represented in the higher echelons of government. The surprise was that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the co-founder of the Taliban, was not heading the government as was widely predicted. He was the man who led the Taliban negotiating team in Doha that signed the withdrawal deal with the United States early last year.

Instead, most of the key posts went to the Taliban leaders who led the two-decades-long war against the U.S. occupation forces. The Taliban named Mullah Hassan Akhund as the interim Prime Minister. He had held the same post in the last years of the first Taliban government before its ouster by the U.S. invasion force 20 years ago. Baradar has been designated as one of two Deputy Prime Ministers. The Foreign Minister’s job has gone to Amir Khan Muttaqi, another veteran of the armed struggle. He too had held the same job in the last Taliban administration. The key post of Interior Minister went to Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of the senior-most Taliban commanders. He has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and is on the most wanted list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and on the terrorism sanctions list of the United Nations. Many of the attacks in Kabul over the past two decades, in which hundreds of people were killed, are said to be the handiwork of the Haqqani group. The Taliban fighters led by the Haqqanis are known to be especially close to the Pakistani military establishment. Khalil Haqqani, an uncle of Sirajuddin’s, has been appointed acting Minister of Refugees and Repatriation. He too is on the U.S.’ wanted list. Najibullah Haqqani, another close relative, is the Minister of Communications.

The Taliban has accused the U.S. of violating the Doha agreement, under whose terms the U.S. had pledged to lift international sanctions on the Taliban leadership in exchange for guarantees on the Taliban not targeting U.S. and allied troops. The Pentagon reiterated recently that the Haqqanis continued to remain “legitimate” targets and would remain on the terror list. The Taliban conveyed to Washington that the refusal to remove sanctions on a sizeable section of the its leadership would further harm bilateral relations.

The Cabinet is heavily Pashtun-centric. Only two senior posts have gone to other major ethnic groups: Abdul Salam Hanafi, an ethnic Uzbek, is the second Deputy Prime Minister and Qari Mohammad Hanif, a Tajik, is the acting Economic Affairs Minister. The Hazaras, the third largest ethnic group in the country, remain unrepresented. In its last iteration, the Taliban government had discriminated against the Hazaras, who are Shias. The powerful Defence Ministry has gone to Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the 30-year-old son of the late Taliban supremo Mullah Omar.

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