KABUL (Dispatches) — The
Taliban on Tuesday announced an interim government in Afghanistan, and declared the country an “Islamic Emirate”.
In a surprise, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who had led the Taliban’s negotiations with the United States, was named as the acting deputy leader of the council of ministers — functionally, as deputy prime minister — rather than being named to the top post. Instead, the Taliban said that Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund, a founding member of the Taliban who served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister in the group’s first government in the 90s, was named to lead the council of ministers.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, a deputy leader of the Taliban insurgency and the leader of the terrorist-listed Haqqani Network, was named as acting minister of the interior. And Mawlawi Muhammad Yaqoob, who is the oldest son of the Taliban’s founding leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was named acting defense minister.
The announcement came just hours after the Taliban used force to break up a demonstration by hundreds of women in Kabul. The protesters called for the Taliban to respect their rights and made it clear that they would not easily surrender the gains they have made over the past two decades.
Running a government will most likely prove more daunting than toppling one. To succeed, the Taliban will need to secure desperately needed aid, which has been frozen by the United States and other nations. Foreign governments and lenders are waiting to see the fate of the opposition and if rights for women and ethnic and religious minorities will be respected.
Without that money, the government faces worsening challenges, including humanitarian and economic crises that have forced Afghans to flee. Basic services like electricity are under threat, and the United Nations warned that food aid would run out by the end of the month for hundreds of thousands of Afghans.
The Taliban, notorious for their brutality when they ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, promised this time to put together a more inclusive government, including possibly including some non-Taliban figures in some form of informal advisory role. But none of that has materialized yet, and people with knowledge of the Taliban’s deliberations said that the real decision-making was an entirely internal process.
Senior Taliban figures did initially meet with leaders from previous governments, among them Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, which the Taliban later characterized as informal discussions.
Earlier, the Taliban fired into the air to disperse protesters and arrested several journalists, the second time in less than a week the group used heavy-handed tactics to break
up a demonstration in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
The demonstrators had gathered outside the Pakistan Embassy to accuse Islamabad of aiding the Taliban’s assault on northern Panjshir province. The Taliban said Monday they seized the province — the last not in their control — after their blitz through Afghanistan last month.
Afghanistan’s previous government routinely accused Pakistan of aiding the Taliban, a charge Islamabad has denied. Former vice president Amrullah Saleh, one of the leaders of the anti-Taliban forces, has long been an outspoken critic of neighboring Pakistan.
Dozens of women were among the protesters Tuesday. Some of them carried signs bemoaning the killing of their sons by Taliban fighters they say were aided by Pakistan. One sign read: “I am a mother when you kill my son you kill a part of me.”
On Saturday, Taliban special forces troops in camouflage fired their weapons into the air to end a protest march in the capital by Afghan women demanding equal rights from the new rulers.
The Taliban again moved quickly and harshly to end Tuesday’s protest when it arrived near the presidential palace. They fired their weapons into the air and arrested several journalists covering the demonstration. In one case, Taliban waving Kalashnikov rifles took a microphone from a journalist and began beating him with it, breaking the microphone. The journalist was later handcuffed and detained for several hours.
“This is the third time i have been beaten by the Taliban covering protests,” he told The Associated Press on condition he not be identified because he was afraid of retaliation. “I won’t go again to cover a demonstration. It’s too difficult for me.”
A journalist from Afghanistan’s popular TOLO News was detained for three hours by the Taliban before being freed along with his equipment and the video of the demonstration still intact.
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, four aircraft chartered to evacuate about 2,000 Afghans fleeing Taliban rule were still at the airport.
Mawlawi Abdullah Mansour, the Taliban official in charge of the city’s airport, said any passenger, Afghan or foreigner, with a passport and valid visa would be allowed to leave. Most of the passengers are believed to be Afghans without proper travel documents.
None of the passengers had arrived at the airport. Instead, organizers apparently told evacuees to travel to Mazar-e-Sharif and find accommodation until they were called to come to the airport.
The Taliban say they are trying to find out who among the estimated 2,000 have valid travel documents.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Qatar on Tuesday the Taliban have given assurances of safe passage for all seeking to leave Afghanistan with proper travel documents.
He said the United States would hold the Taliban to that pledge. “It’s my understanding that the Taliban has not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said those without valid documents, at this point, can’t leave,” he said.
“Because all of these people are grouped together, that’s meant that flights have not been allowed to go,” he added.
The State Department is also working with the Taliban to facilitate additional charter flights from Kabul for people seeking to leave Afghanistan after the American military and diplomatic departure, Blinken told a joint news conference with Qatar’s top diplomatic and defense officials.
“In recent hours” the U.S. has been in contact with Taliban officials to work out arrangements for additional charter flights from the Afghan capital, he said.
Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were in Qatar to thank the Persian Gulf state for its help with the transit of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of Kabul on Aug. 15.