The Taliban on Tuesday evening announced the new government in Afghanistan--almost three weeks after capturing Kabul--headed by Mullah Hasan Akhund, a close associate of the movement founder Mullah Omar. No member outside of the movement has been named part of the new dispensation. 

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, will head the country’s interior minister, the group’s spokespersonZabihullah Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul. The US State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million on information leading to the arrest of Haqqani. 

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the group’s political office in Doha, will be deputy prime minister. Baradar, who is also one of the three deputies to the Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, was earlier expected to lead the government. 

Baradar had earlier held negotiations with the US, resulting in the signing of the historic Doha Agreement on 28 February 2020. Abbas Stanekzai, the deputy head of the group’s political office in Doha, has been named the deputy foreign minister. Both Baradar and Stanekzai, considered moderate and nationalist in the group, had been earlier arrested by Pakistan and spent years in Pakistani custody. 

Addressing the press conference, Mujahid said all appointments are made in acting capacities, with many ministerial positions were to be announced later. 

Contrary to the repeated assurances by the group to form an inclusive government, the new government didn’t include any member outside of the Taliban movement. 

The Taliban, a Sunni fundamentalist Islamic group dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, included only two ethnic Tajik and one Uzbek as ministers in the government. 

Among the total 33 members announced today, not a single minister was named from the Haraza community, a historically persecuted Persian-speaking Shia minority ethnic group in the country--a betrayal of the group’s own promises of forming an “inclusive government.” 

The marginalization of non-Pashtun ethnic groups, experts believe, will most certainly lead to a prolonged ethnic struggle, the one witnessed in the 90s. Regional countries like Iran and Tajikistan had earlier warned the Taliban against monopolizing power to just one single ethnic group. Russia had also expressed similar views. 

The announcement of the new government came on the day when the group--for the first time since taking power in Kabul-- witnessed large-scale anti-Pakistan protests in many cities, including in capital Kabul. Protesters, which included mostly Afghan women, braved the gun-toting Taliban fighters and chanted slogans like “Death to Pakistan”, denouncing Islamabad’s interference in the country. 

The public visit of the chief of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, two days back in Kabul fueled large-scale protests across the country over Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan’s domestic affairs.