The leadership of the Taliban has shown signs of some cracks in recent days, a year and a half after returning to power in Afghanistan, after an infrequent exchange of accusations and public criticism among various senior officials of the fundamentalist group.
The tensions came to light days ago when the Interior Minister and leader of the Red Haqqani terrorist group, Sirajudín Haqqani, accused the Taliban leadership of “monopolizing” power, while advocating “legitimate interaction” with the international community.
“To this day, we consider ourselves honest enough and our opinions and ideas have dominated us to a point where challenging, attacking, maligning and monopolizing the entire system has become an initiative, a stance and a foundation for us,” denounced.
“May God correct our intentions and actions. This situation cannot be tolerated,” he said during a ceremony in Khost province. In this way, he stressed the need to seek “legitimate interaction with the world” and “build a legitimate path.”
Analysts believe that Haqqani’s criticisms are most likely to revolve around restrictions on female education in Afghanistan, which he has publicly endorsed on several occasions, with the aim of garnering more international support and reactivating aid delivery to deal with to the serious crisis in which the Central Asian country is submerged.
Lhe limitations imposed by the Taliban on the basic rights of the population, especially women, have provoked harsh criticism from the international community, which continues to not recognize the fundamentalist regime and maintains the sanctions and the blockade of funds from the Afghan Central Bank.
Thus, although Haqqani did not mention anyone directly, the statements were interpreted as a direct attack on the Taliban leader, Mullah Hebatullah Ajundzada, who has always positioned himself in favor of maintaining international contacts always within the framework of the ‘ sharia’.
The words of the leader of the Haqqani Network, an ally of the Taliban, provoked quick responses from other senior Taliban officials, although they did not directly mention him either.
Thus, the Afghan deputy minister of Justice, Abdulghani Fayiq, warned that “movements against the system will not be forgiven”, while the spokesman for the Taliban and deputy minister of Information, Zabihulá Mujahid, stressed that criticism must be made in private.
“From an ethical point of view, the principle is that if an emir, official, minister or deputy minister has criticism to make, it would be better to avoid desecration, according to Islamic ethics, maintain respect and keep criticism secret,” Mujahid argued. .
Mujahid, one of the most visible faces of the Taliban regime, stated that “if there was no opportunity for it -in reference to transferring criticism in private-, it does not mean that he will be imprisoned”, in an apparent attempt to reduce the tensions, ruling out the possibility that senior officials critical of Ajundzada will be arrested.
However, criticism has piled up in recent days, also from the Afghan Deputy Prime Minister, Abdulsalam Hanafi, who has defended the need to strengthen the education system and stressed that “the duty of a mufti is not just to say ‘ forbidden, forbidden, forbidden'”.
Likewise, the Afghan Defense Minister, Muhamad Yaqub -son of the founder of the Taliban, Mullah Mohamad Omar and a very influential figure in southern Afghanistan-, stressed that “we must not be arrogant” and that “they must take into account the legitimate demands of the population.
Akhundzada was appointed as the group’s supreme leader in May 2016 after the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansur, who had been killed days earlier in a US bombing raid in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. The Taliban then announced that Haqqani and Yaqub, other favorites for the post, would act as ‘number two’.
The situation, rare within the group, represents the materialization of speculation that has existed for years regarding internal differences between the Taliban, although the organization has maintained a cohesive position vis-a-vis the outside.
The mix of militants, commanders and political representatives receive their orders from a shura council based in the southern city of Kandahar, a traditional Taliban stronghold.
Ajundzada operates from there, who has made very few public appearances and has governed through a series of edicts that have led the Taliban to distance itself from the international commitments reached with the United States during the Doha talks process.
The independent Afghan television channel Amu TV, managed by journalists in exile, indicated in a documentary published in 2022 that the leadership of the group is divided into a political and religious triangle represented by Ajundzada -who would be the most powerful figure-, Haqqani and Yaqub.
The analyst Mahdi Afzali has explained that “the differences in the dome of power are more and more evident” and has added that “some members of the Taliban think that there is no dome.” “Sirajudin has his followers in the east and Yaqub has them in the south. Another reason is the support of countries in the region for a different faction within the Taliban,” he argued.
fracture risk
The Critical Threats Project of the ‘think tank’ Institute for the Study of War (ISW, according to its acronym in English) has recognized that Ajundzada’s “unwillingness” to reach commitments with critical sectors within the group it will end up “alienating” “important leaders of the Taliban”, which could lead to a “fracture” within the organization.
“Ajundzada is a highly ideological individual, so it is extremely unlikely that he will voluntarily give up his position as supreme leader of the Taliban,” he indicated in his latest report, in which he noted that “Ajundzada’s continued refusal to contemplating policies that alter their hard line or rule less autocratically is causing disagreements to come to the fore.”
In fact, the level of internal criticism has reached a point where some sources say that several members of the Taliban-installed government in Afghanistan want the supreme leader out of office if he does not agree to reconsider his ban on women’s education and girls in the country
The ‘think tank’ has pointed out that one way to alleviate part of these tensions would be to “return some power” to the Taliban authorities in Kabul, in the framework of the aforementioned dispute between the government and the nucleus of power based in Kandahar.
However, he has indicated that “the tensions within the Taliban movement will continue to increase, but it is unlikely that it will lead to a civil war between fundamentalists in the short term.” “The Taliban leadership knows that an open factional civil war would destroy the fledgling Taliban state and jeopardize their ability to control Afghanistan,” he explained.
“This is probably one of the most important factors that keeps the Taliban government together despite the increase in internal disagreements,” he said, while stressing that “it is unlikely that the factions opposed to the supreme leader will openly fight against theirs until tensions reach a point where they consider Ajunzdaza’s policies pose a greater threat to the survival of the government than the risk of acting to depose him.”