A month later, Akhundzada, Haqqani and Yaqoob remain in shadows

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of an eponymous terror group, travelled to Quetta over the weekend due to personal safety concerns; Akhundzada is still to be seen in Kandahar or Kabul, while Yaqoob remains in shadows.

Published on: Sep 16, 2021, 10:37:54 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

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A month after Sunni Pashtun Islamists militarily took over Kabul, there is uncertainty and confusion within the Taliban government with US designated global terrorist and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani remaining in the shadows and visiting Quetta earlier this week. Haqqani belongs to Miramshah or Peshwar Shura of Taliban with Defence minister Mullah Yaqoob Omari is part of the Quetta Shura. Haqqani is said to have returned to Kabul on Wednesday night.

Taliban fighters stand next to ammunition along a road in Malaspa area, Bazark district in Panjshir province. (AFP Photo)

Also Read | 10 changes in Afghanistan in 30 days of Taliban rule

Kabul watchers say that the main players of Taliban, particularly self-declared Emir-ul-Momin Haibatullah Akhundzada’s whereabouts are not clear as he has not been seen in public 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 are also lurking in the shadows. “Haqqani’s visit to Quetta over the weekend shows that the crown prince of terror is still worried about his physical safety in Kabul due to over the horizon capabilities of US Central Command as well as the resistance still led by Amrullah Saleh,” said a senior official. Haqqani has a bounty of $10 million on his head as declared by the FBI.

According to intelligence officials, the Taliban government is still to start governing as there is political jostling within the Cabinet 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 is no regular Afghan Army as such, the role of defence minister Yaqoob is largely 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 the regrouping of al Qaeda forces as publicly declared by a top CIA official. Al Qaeda has filial ties and symbiotic relationship with Taliban even though they belong to opposing schools of Islam with former a Wahhabi-Salafi group and the latter a Deobandi group. The regrouping of al Qaeda means that there is no change in the present Taliban from the past and will give sleepless nights to counter-terrorism organizations in the neighbourhood.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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