A day after the Taliban captured Kabul, when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, chaos has set in in Afghanistan. The Taliban took control of the presidential palace in Kabul, finally ending the 20-year-old US army in Afghanistan.
According to the latest reports, Kabul panic as people rush to the airports and border guards to leave the country through 2001 for fear of harsh Taliban rule in the 1990s.
Dozens of nations called on all parties involved to respect and facilitate the departure of foreigners and Afghans willing to leave. More than 60 nations published the joint statement by the US State Department late on Sunday evening.
After Ghani fled the country, the top leadership of the Taliban is on the way to take over the Afghan government. A Taliban official announced from the presidential palace that the country would now be called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country on Sunday and fled the advancing Taliban with his fellow citizens and foreigners. (Photo: AP)
WHO’S WHO OF TALIBAN
Despite nearly 20 years of fighting by US-led forces and billions of dollars spent on funding reconstruction in Afghanistan, the Taliban managed to capture the entire country in just over a week. The final phase of the takeover has begun negotiations between the Taliban leadership and the Afghan government were still ongoing in Doha, Qatar.
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Here is the Taliban’s governance structure:
Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada is featured in an undated photo posted on a Taliban Twitter feed on May 25, 2016. (Photo: Reuters)
SUPREME LEADER: HAIBATULLAH AKHUNDZADA
Haibatullah Akhundzada is the current head of the Taliban team. He was an inconspicuous religious figure who worked under previous Taliban chiefs, mostly in the background. He is now the Taliban’s spiritual figure after being named its Supreme Leader in 2016.
The appointment came after a US drone attack killed Mullah Mansour Akhtar, the then Taliban chief. Akhundzada reportedly showed his skills when he managed to secure a promise of loyalty from Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
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Ayman al-Zawahiri called him “the emir of the believers”, thereby confirming his jihadist references to the group’s longstanding allies. According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Akhundzada was faced with the enormous challenge of uniting the Taliban factions, whose unity had briefly burst due to a major power struggle within the group and the increasing collision with the Afghan government.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Deputy Leader and Negotiator of the Taliban, and other delegation members attend the Afghan peace conference in Moscow. (Photo: Reuters)
THE POLITICAL HEAD: ABDUL GHANI BARADAR
Liberated from a Pakistani prison only three years ago at the request of the USA, Abdul Ghani Baradar was a co-founder of the Taliban Mullah Omar, the one-eyed cleric and former head of the force. The hour of birth of the Taliban revolves around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Today Baradar is the political leader of the Taliban and its most public face. He was known for approaching Ghani with a potential deal after the Taliban collapsed in 2001. He was arrested by Pakistan in 2010 before being released and appointed head of the Taliban’s political office. He is a key player in negotiations with the US.
According to The Guardian, Baradar’s return to power epitomizes Afghanistan’s inability to escape the bloody chains of its past. Born in 1968 in Uruzgan Province, he fought as a mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s.
“The real test for the Taliban was just beginning and they had to serve the nation,” Baradar said after the fall of Kabul on Sunday.
The wanted poster of the US Federal Criminal Police Office for Sirajuddin Haqqani can be seen on an undated handout photo. (Photo: Reuters)
THE HAQQANI NETWORK: SIRAJUDDIN HAQQANI
Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of anti-Soviet jihad commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, is the deputy leader of the Taliban. He is also the head of the Haqqani Network, a US-designated terrorist group that has long been considered one of the most dangerous groups in the fight against Afghan and NATO forces.
According to Dawn, the network is behind some of the largest attacks in Afghanistan, along with the kidnapping of Western citizens for ransom – including US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in 2014.
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In an opinion column published in 2020 in the New York Times, Sirajuddin Haqqani had said: “We did not choose our war with the United States-led foreign coalition. We were forced to defend ourselves.”
“We will remain committed to all international conventions as long as they are compatible with Islamic principles. And we expect other countries to respect the sovereignty and stability of our country and view them as the basis for cooperation rather than competition and conflict.”
Taliban fighters have taken control of the Afghan presidential palace. (Photo: AP)
NEXT IN ROW: MULLAH YAQOOB
Mullah Yakoob is the son of the Taliban founder Mullah Omar, who heads the group’s powerful military commission. He is considered the next supreme leader of the Taliban, even during the power struggles before 2016.
Yaqoob proposed to Akhundzadas in 2016 because he felt he lacked battlefield experience and was too young, according to a Taliban commander at the meeting that elected Mansour’s successor. Yaqoob is said to be in his early 30s.
READ: There will be no “interim government” in Afghanistan: Taliban spokesman | Exclusive
EXECUTIVE BOARD: RAHBARI SHURA
The Rahbari Shura is the highest leadership council that has the final say on all political affairs within the Taliban. Haibatullah Akhundzada is reported to have to reach consensus from the Shura before making major decisions. The collegial leadership model is a step away from the autocratic rule of Mullah Omar, who made all the important decisions.
Also known as Quetta Shura after the Pakistani city where Mullah Omar allegedly sought refuge after the US invasion, the Rahbhari Shura is largely responsible for important political and military decisions by the Taliban. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Shura oversees various commissions, similar to the ministries before the fall of the Taliban, and administrative bodies through which the Taliban operate a shadow government.
The commissions cover the business, education, health and public relations sectors, apart from appointing shadow governors and battlefield commanders.
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