The Taliban in Afghanistan have named a new interim government led by hardliners as the group pledges to implement a strict Islamic rule over the country of roughly 40 million. The new cabinet of the freshly restored Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan contains no women, and no positions for opposition forces or ethnic and religious minorities.
Few in the international community foresaw the speed with which the militant Islamist group would take over Afghanistan, making a series of stunning territorial gains in July and August as the U.S. withdrew its troops to end its 20-year war in the country.
The Taliban’s moves so far show a failure to meet the group’s earlier pledge of an “inclusive” government, even as the moves put Western financial aid at risk, and do not bode well for those who wanted to see Afghanistan rid of terrorist activity. Experts warn that the global jihadi movement will feel emboldened by what they see in Afghanistan as a triumph.
“For the foreseeable future, Afghanistan will be led by senior Taliban leaders who include in many cases the worst of the worst,” Michael Kugelman, Deputy Director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center, told CNBC on Wednesday. Kugelman pointed specifically to individuals from the Haqqani Network, which is known as the most brutal faction of the Taliban.
In a controversial appointment, Sirajuddin Haqqani has become Afghanistan’s interior minister, in charge of police and security. Haqqani is the leader of the Haqqani Network which is known to have links to Al Qaeda. He is on the FBI’s most wanted list and is a designated global terrorist. The Taliban’s provision of a safe haven to Al Qaeda in the 1990s is what led the U.S. to invade Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.
In the years since the U.S. invasion, Haqqani has deployed violent tactics as a deputy to the Afghan Taliban, including using death squads for executions and releasing videos of mass beheadings.
A history of mass casualty attacks
The Sunni Islamist Haqqani Network was founded in the 1970s, fought the Soviet-backed Afghan regime in the 1980s, and later pioneered the use of suicide bombings in Afghanistan which killed and injured thousands of American, coalition, and Afghan soldiers. High profile attacks include the blowing up of Kabul’s Serena Hotel in 2008, and a 20-hour siege of the U.S. embassy compound in Kabul in 2011 that left 16 Afghans dead.
It’s important to note that while some Taliban representatives say the group will be more conciliatory now than in the past and will abide by certain international norms, the group itself is not a monolith, and is comprised of numerous factions with varying degrees of extremism and propensity to support other terrorist groups.
“I think you’re looking at a situation where no matter what type of government we’re going to have in Afghanistan, terrorism risks were going to increase just because you have the Taliban in control, the Taliban is not known for trying to deny space to its militant partners in the country with the exception of ISIS-K which is their rival,” Kugelman said.
“But let’s be clear here,” he added. “You’re going to have several members of the Haqqani network — which has been implicated in some of the most mass casualty horrific terrorist attacks in Afghanistan over the years — and several of these leaders are going to be occupying these top spots, including the interior ministry, and clearly that is a major cause for concern, no matter how you slice it.”
‘Terrorist groups under the umbrella of the Taliban’
Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s leader since his predecessor was killed in a drone strike in 2016, will remain the ultimate authority over the group’s religious, political and military affairs. A hardline cleric whose son was a suicide bomber, Akhundzada has sworn that the new government would pursue Sharia governance.
Muhammad Hassan Akhund, Afghanistan’s foreign minister before the 2001 U.S. invasion, has been named prime minister.
“The government that was rolled out today includes a constellation of hardliners in the Taliban leadership,” Peter Michael McKinley, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, told CNBC on Wednesday. He noted the interior minister Haqqani’s $5 million bounty from the FBI for acts of terrorism against troops and civilians, and the defense minister position given to Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of the Taliban’s late founder, Mullah Omar.
“So if the Taliban was looking to send a message to the international community that it’s looking to toe a different line from the government it headed between 1996 and 2001, this is not the best start.”
The State Department has reiterated its concerns about the record of some of the men in the new Afghan government, and repeated its expectation that Afghanistan not threaten other nations and allow humanitarian access into the country.
Countries must practice caution with Taliban ‘to avoid another 9/11’: Expert
The major fear across the international community, said Nader Nadery, a senior member of the Afghan Peace Negotiation Team, is of “a consolidation of power of all the terrorist groups [under] the umbrella of the Taliban and the space that the Taliban is providing for them.”
Bearing all this in mind however, there are “a lot of calculations they have to make on responding to the emerging humanitarian crisis” in the country, McKinley said. And for that, they will need money.
With an economy overwhelmingly dependent on aid and a government that was 80% funded by Western donors, the Taliban “are going to have to take into account at least some international concerns,” he noted. “So, opening signs are not encouraging, but we have to work with what comes in the following days in terms of actual actions.”
