Mohammad Hassan Akhund has been appointed head of the Taliban’s government, while terrorists have been appointed interior minister. Peace researcher calls the government a disappointment.
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On Tuesday afternoon, the Taliban appointed several people to serve as acting ministers in their new government in Afghanistan.
It reports Reuters, which quotes spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid in the militant Islamist group. according to BBC also declared the Taliban Afghanistan a “Islamic emirate”.
The announcement comes just one day after Panjshir province – the last of the country’s 34 provinces – is said to have fallen under the group’s control. According to the resistance movement, they have not surrendered, and they say that the fighting against the Taliban will continue in Panjshir.
Mohammad Hassan Akhund, one of the Taliban’s co – founders, becomes prime minister of the new Afghan government.
According to Times of India Akhund is the leader of Rehbari Shura – a governing body within the Taliban.
The last time the Taliban held power in Afghanistan, between 1996 and 2001, Akhund served as both the group’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, who co-founded the Taliban, will be the government’s deputy leader, Amir Khan Muttaqi will be their new foreign minister.
While the son of the founder and former top leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, has been appointed defense minister.
–Terrorist wanted to become Minister of the Interior
The leader of the Haqqani network, which has been behind a series of terrorist attacks and suicide bombings, Sirajuddin Haqqani, will step into the role of acting interior minister.
The network is considered by the United States to be a terrorist group. Haqqani himself is wanted for the attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul in 2008, where the Norwegian photojournalist Carsten Thomassen was among the six killed.
The FBI has promised a bounty of up to five million dollars, equivalent to over 40 million Norwegian kroner, to anyone who can provide information that directly leads to the arrest of Haqqani.
–Kristian Berg Harpviken, a researcher at the Peace Research Institute Prio, believes the Taliban have not fulfilled what they promised when they took control of the country. He points out to VG that the people who have now been appointed “only contain established Taliban leaders”.
– Many of them are people who were in government last time the Taliban came to power. They have also been central in the 20 years between. While some have grown over time. There is no one who does not have a Taliban background. Also, there are very few who are not of Pashtun ethnic descent.
Harpviken emphasizes that the Taliban signaled that they wanted an inclusive government.
– But this is not an inclusive government. This is a strong signal, he states.
–No women appointed
It has previously been suggested that Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada should be the leader of the new government, but this has not been the case.
It is more likely that he will be given the role of “supreme leader” – a similar role that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has in Iran, while remaining the Taliban leader. It is also expected that he will remain in Kandahar, where the Taliban movement originated.
The appointments are marked by the Taliban’s established leadership, individuals who have been central to the 20-year struggle against the US-led coalition and their Afghan allies.
So far, no government members have been appointed who do not represent the Taliban, which has been one of the demands of the international community. No women have been appointed to senior positions either.
The announcement of the ministerial roles also comes just hours after the Taliban cracked down hard on a women’s demonstration in Kabul. Taliban soldiers fired into the air to disperse the crowd as several hundred women marched through the streets of the capital with support for the resistance movement and for women’s rights.
When asked by the BBC why no women had been appointed to ministerial posts, a Taliban leader replied that the composition of the government was still not complete.
Announces ministers just before the 20th anniversary of 9/11
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan just over three weeks ago as a result of a lightning offensive against regional capitals in the country. Afghan government forces laid down their arms and surrendered, while parts of the government, including President Ashraf Ghani, fled the country. en The Taliban surrounded the capital, Kabul.
It came almost 20 years after the Taliban regime was overthrown by the US-led invasion of the country in 2001, which came in the wake of al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11 of that year.
Ahead of the invasion, then-President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban extradite al-Qaeda leaders to the United States. The Taliban refused.
With Tuesday’s announcements, the Taliban are well on their way to establishing a new regime, just four days before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack.
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