Taliban founder’s son is put in charge of military wing
THE Taliban has put the son of the movement’s feared founder in charge of its military wing in one of its most significant shakeups in years.
It has also added powerful figures to its negotiating team ahead of expected talks aimed at ending Afghanistan’s decades of war, Taliban officials said.
As head of a newly united military wing, 30-year-old Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob brings his father’s fiercely uncompromising reputation to the battlefield.
Equally significant is the addition of four members of the insurgent group’s leadership council to the 20-member negotiating team, Taliban officials told The Associated Press.
The shuffle overseen by Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada is meant to tighten his control over the movement’s military and political arms, they said.
Analysts say the shake-up could be good news for negotiations with Afghanistan’s political leadership in Kabul and a sign of just how serious the Taliban are taking this second step in a deal Washington signed with the insurgents in February.
“I’d say it appears to be a positive development because the Taliban are creating a delegation that seems more senior and more broad-based than they’ve used to date, or than might be strictly necessary for the opening stages of talks,” Andrew Wilder, vice-president of the Asia Programme at the Washington-based US Institute of Peace said.
“If you want to see the glass as half full, this strengthened Taliban delegation could be interpreted as a sign that the group is planning to engage in serious discussions.”
When the US signed the deal with the Taliban on February 29, after more than a year-and-a-half of negotiations, it was touted as Afghanistan’s best chance at peace in four decades of war.
It was also seen as a road map for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
On Monday, four-and-a-half months since the signing, chief US negotiator and peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted that “a key milestone in the implementation of the US-Taliban agreement” had been reached as American troop numbers dropped to 8,600 from about 12,000 and five bases were closed.
Even as Khalilzad chastised increased insurgent attacks on Afghan security forces, he said the Taliban had been true to their word not to attack US and Nato troops.
“No American has lost his/her life in Afghanistan to Taliban violence,” he said.
“Regional relations have improved.”
The Taliban have stepped up their military activity against government forces since Yaqoob’s appointment in May, a sign the religious militia under his leadership may see battlefield wins as upping their leverage at the negotiation table.
“I can see a lot of reasons for the Taliban to be pushing the envelope – perhaps as a negotiation tactic but equally likely as a means to test US limits,” Daniel Markey, a senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said.