A month after Sunni Pashtun Islamists militarily took over Kabul, there’s uncertainty and confusion within the Taliban government with US designated global terrorist and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani remaining within the shadows and visiting Quetta earlier in the week . Haqqani belongs to Miramshah or Peshwar Shura of Taliban with Defence minister Mullah Yaqoob Omari is a component of the Quetta Shura. Haqqani is claimed to possess returned to Kabul on Wednesday night.
Kabul watchers say that the most players of Taliban, particularly self-declared Emir-ul-Momin Haibatullah Akhundzada’s whereabouts aren’t clear as he has not been seen publicly either in Kandahar or in Kabul. While deputy prime minister Mullah Baradar is in Kandahar nursing his angst at being politically humiliated by both Haqqani and Yaqoob, the latter two also are lurking within the shadows. “Haqqani’s visit to Quetta over the weekend shows that the prince of terror remains worried about his physical safety in Kabul thanks to over the horizon capabilities folks Central Command also because the resistance still led by Amrullah Saleh,” said a senior official. Haqqani features a bounty of $10 million on his head as declared by the FBI.
According to intelligence officials, the Taliban government remains to start out governing as there’s political jostling within the cupboard with Haqqani group controlling Kabul through the domination of its Zadran tribe military cadre touching nearly 6000. Even the intelligence chief of Taliban government is special assistant to Sirajuddin Haqqani. As there’s no regular Afghan Army intrinsically , the role of defence minister Yaqoob is essentially ceremonial as Taliban cadre are with Haqqani. The key portfolios of border and tribal affairs and, information and broadcasting are held by hardcore Taliban terrorists who were released from Guantanamo Bay prison by the Obama administration.
To add to political instability in Afghanistan is that the regrouping of al Qaeda forces as publicly declared by a top CIA official. Al Qaeda has filial ties and symbiotic relationship with Taliban albeit they belong to opposing schools of Islam with former a Wahhabi-Salafi group and therefore the latter a Deobandi group. The regrouping of al Qaeda means there’s no change within the present Taliban from the past and can give sleepless nights to counter-terrorism organizations within the neighbourhood.
