Below are some details about the personalities that the sources indicated will occupy key positions in the new government.
God’s grace Akhundzadeh
A source in the Taliban said that the supreme leader of the movement will guide the new government, and that his role will focus on religious affairs and governing the country within the framework of Islamic law.
Akhundzadeh, a law professor far from public view, took over the leadership of the movement after his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a US drone strike in 2016.
The United Nations says he was the head of the justice system, which was imposed by the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.
After his appointment as Taliban leader, Akhundzadeh moved cautiously to unify the movement and swapped out its top officials in an effort to consolidate his power, end internal divisions and stop members defecting from the movement and joining rival groups such as ISIS.
One of his sons carried out a suicide attack on an Afghan army base and was killed in Helmand in 2017.
Akhundzadeh has not made any public statement since Kabul fell to the movement and rumors circulated that he had died some time ago.
Abdul Ghani Bardar
Baradar was at one time a close friend of the movement’s first founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, who chose for him the nickname “Bardar”, which means “brother”.
He was the Deputy Minister of Defense during the former Taliban rule of Afghanistan.
A United Nations memo stated that after the overthrow of the movement’s government, he served as a senior military commander responsible for attacks on coalition forces.
He was arrested and imprisoned in Pakistan in 2010, and after his release in 2018, he headed the Taliban political office in Doha and became one of the most prominent figures in peace talks with the United States.
Sher Muhammed Abbas Stanikzai
Stanikzai, who was Baradar’s deputy in Doha, received a military education in India and graduated in 1982.
His classmates say he liked walking and swimming in the Ganges and did not show any inclination to be strict.
After his graduation, Stanikzai participated in the Soviet-Afghan War and served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the first Taliban government.
Stanekzai, who speaks fluent English, helped establish the movement’s political office in Doha and was one of the movement’s top envoys to foreign diplomats and media.
Mullah Muhammad Yaqoub
He is the son of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the founder of the movement, and he initially sought to succeed his father in 2015. He came out angry from a meeting of the movement’s council, which appointed Mullah Akhtar Mansour as a leader, but eventually reconciled with the leadership and was appointed as deputy to Akhundzadeh after Mansour’s death.
He is still in his early forties and does not have the long combat experience that distinguishes prominent field commanders in the movement, but he enjoys the loyalty of part of the movement in Kandahar because of the prestige of his father’s name.
He was appointed as the general head of the Taliban’s Military Committee last year, which oversees all military operations in Afghanistan.
Although some Western analysts consider him to be a relative moderate, Taliban leaders said he was among the movement’s leaders who pressed for a military campaign in the cities in the weeks before the fall of Kabul.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/who-are-the-main-figures-in-the-afghan-taliban-government/
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