Afghanistan’s government picked
KABUL: The Taliban drew from its inner high echelons to fill top posts in Afghanistan’s new government reports say, including an associate of the Islamist militant group’s founder as premier and a wanted man on a United States terrorism list as interior minister.
World powers have told the Taliban the key to peace and development is an inclusive government that would back up its pledges of a more conciliatory approach, upholding human rights, after a previous 19962001 period in power marked by bloody vendettas and oppression of women.
Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, in his first public statement since the
August 15 seizure of the capital Kabul by the insurgents, said the Taliban was committed to all international laws, treaties and commitments not in conflict with Islamic law.
Mullah Hasan Akhund, named as prime minister, like many in the Taliban leadership derives much of his prestige from his close link to the movement’s reclusive late founder Mullah Omar, who presided over its rule two decades ago.
Akhund is longtime chief of the Taliban’s powerful decisionmaking body Rehbari Shura, or leadership council. He was foreign minister and then deputy prime minister when the Taliban were last in power and, like many of the incoming Cabinet, is under UN sanctions for his role in that government.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the new interior minister, is the son of the founder of the Haqqani network, classified as a terrorist group by Washington. He is one of the FBI’s most wanted men over involvement in suicide attacks and ties with al Qaeda.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the movement’s political office who was given his nom de guerre ‘‘brother’’, or Baradar, by Mullah Omar, was appointed as Akhund’s deputy, main Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in Kabul.
The passing over of Baradar for the top government job came as a surprise as he had been responsible for negotiating the US withdrawal at talks in Qatar.
Baradar was previously a senior Taliban commander in the long insurgency against US forces.
Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, a son of Mullah Omar, was named as defence minister. All the appointments were in an acting capacity, Mujahid said.
US President Joe Biden said there would be no recognition of the Taliban government soon.