Taliban unveils new Afghan government

In an appointment that would make recognition of the new government more difficult by Western countries, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who was designated a global terrorist by Washington because of his close ties to al Qaeda and its flagship Haqqani network, was named interior minister. had gone. Police and Internal Security of Afghanistan.

While Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada oversees state affairs, the new prime minister is Mullah Hassan Akhund, who served as foreign minister in the previous Islamic emirate, which was deposed by the 2001 US invasion.

“There were two major goals of our last 20 years of struggle and jihad. First to end foreign occupation and aggression and liberate the country and secondly to establish a complete, independent, stable and central Islamic order in the country.” Based on this principle, in future, all matters of governance and life in Afghanistan will be governed by the laws of the Holy Sharia.”

The new government was announced at a hastily convened Kabul press conference after dark, after months of assurances from the Taliban to foreign diplomats, journalists and Afghan politicians that they sought to create an inclusive administration that would support all segments of Afghan society. represents.

“It is not ‘inclusive’ in any sense of the word. It is a slap in the face to other Afghans and the international community,” said Barnett Rubin, a former State Department official and an academic long involved in peace talks with the Taliban. Said, who is now a non-resident fellow at the New Center for International Cooperation. York University. “Bottom line: Afghanistan still needs a political settlement, and this government moves the country further away from that objective than before.”

The new government of the restored Islamic Emirate, established in 2001, marking the end of the Afghan Republic, was formed a day after the Taliban seized the last provincial capital outside their control as they fought resistance in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul. forces were defeated.

Hours before the press conference, the Taliban violently dispersed the largest protest ever against their regime in Kabul, firing in the air and using truncheons to repel hundreds of protesters, including Most were women. No member of the new government attended the press conference.

So far, no other government has given the Taliban diplomatic recognition, although Russia, China, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan have kept their embassies open in Kabul after all Western missions closed last month. In the 1990s, only three countries recognized Taliban rule in Kabul: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Just as in the 1990 Taliban administration, almost all top members of the new government are ethnic Pashtuns, one deputy prime minister slot moves to Uzbek, a Tajik commander from northeastern Badakhshan province becomes army chief, and another takes over the Tajik economy. The Shia Hazara community, whose representatives held important positions during the republic and who accounted for more than a fifth of the country’s population, were completely excluded.

Mawlawi Mohammad Yacoub, the Taliban’s military chief during the insurgency, became defense minister, while Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar, was appointed the Taliban’s face during talks with the international community. Another Deputy Prime Minister.

The Taliban’s chief spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, who announced the new lineup at the US-funded media center of the Afghan Republic, insisted that the new government represents the entire country.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was not formed on the basis of ethnicity, we have not fought for one ethnic group. We speak and fight for the whole of Afghanistan.”

Shortly after the 15 August fall of Kabul, representatives of the Taliban visited former republican figures who had been left behind in the Afghan capital, such as former President Hamid Karzai and former chief peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah. Another Taliban spokesman, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said he had not been included in the current cabinet but could be given the post of deputy minister in the future.

With progress in Panjshir, the Taliban have essentially ended the only remaining armed opposition to their regime. However, Tuesday’s demonstrations indicated they faced discontent within broader Afghan society, particularly in Kabul, a modern metropolis where many oppose the Taliban’s puritanical methods.

The country is cut off from the international financial system and most foreign aid, with long lines daily at bank branches in Kabul as Afghans try to withdraw at least part of their savings.

In Kabul, opinion was divided about Tuesday’s protests. On the way to the march, a shopkeeper said that he agreed with the protesters. “The Taliban government, we don’t know who is doing what, and whether it is Pakistan that is pulling all the strings,” he said. “Banks don’t have money, business is in trouble, everyone is talking about an alliance. Against the Taliban.”

The next shopkeeper took the opposite view. “The previous government was a government of corruption. They are all protesting there because they can’t steal anymore,” he said. “The Islamic Emirate gave us security and a true Islamic order.”