Maria Laura Avignolo
09/14/2021 4:31 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 9/14/2021 4:31 PM
The inter-Taliban war
seems to have broken out
and was not only reflected in the formation of the provisional government in Kabul, where the Haqqani group, ally of Al Qaeda, of opium and wanted by the United States for terrorism, gained dominance.
Two senior Afghan figures have disappeared in Kabul and Afghans are wondering if the supreme leader and hermit Taliban, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has never been seen since the formation of the government, and the deputy prime minister who had aspirations to be the head of government, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
are still alive
.
Mullah Baradar
was not present at the
Taliban
meeting
with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani last Sunday.
The last time he was seen in public was on August 15, when he announced that the new government was to be formed.
On Monday the Taliban was forced to deny that he was dead,
following rumors that he had been assassinated,
in a power struggle on Friday at the presidential palace with the powerful and brutal Haqqani clan.
In the battle Anna Haqqani would have been injured in the dispute.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, Foreign Minister of the Taliban.
Photo EFE
In Qatar, the three members of the Haqqani family were at the delegate summit with other members of the new Afghan government.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is the new interior minister, although the FBI pays
$ 5 million for his head
and he is on the UN terrorist list.
But he also has ties to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which last week killed three policemen in Queta, with a suicidal man.
The clan
The Haqqani clan has oiled ties with Pakistan, which with Mullah Baradar's alliance with China in the region, was outside the influence of power that it sought and historically had.
The Haqqani and ISIS, the Pakistani secret service,
have worked together for decades since the Soviet invasion.
Khalil Haqqani is the refugee minister in the new administration.
Anna Haqani, his other brother and poet,
played a high-level
negotiating role in the evacuation with the United States and was also present at Sunday's meeting with Qatari diplomats.
Rumors about Baradar's safety
date back to last week, when the Taliban announced the government.
He, who was to be the top boss, was relegated to deputy prime minister while the Haqqani clan climbed steeply in the hierarchy to become minister of the interior.
The Afghan government insists that Baradar
is in Kandahar
alongside the top leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, discussing the future of the government.
But Baradar and the Haqqani have historical differences, dating back to the relationship with Al Qaida and Osama Bin Laden, when he was deputy defense minister in the Afghan Taliban government.
The top Taliban leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada,
has not been seen in public
, a month after the militants took control of Afghanistan.
A spokesman has recorded that he denies rumors of his death.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the most recognizable faces of the Taliban and brother-in-law of Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban and who hid him when the US bombings began in 2001,
is also missing.
He is the number 2 Taliban
and who led the negotiations for the peace agreement in Doha with the United States government, after being released from ISIS prisons in Karachi, Pakistan.
Questions about the well-being of the head of the political office and a key figure in the peace talks began to mount
after he was not seen in public for several days.
There have been rumors in Kabul that he had been killed or seriously injured in a fight with another senior Taliban figure, during a discussion about how to divide Afghanistan's ministries, according to sources in Kabul.
Pakistan or Muslim Brotherhood?
The Taliban
is not a uniform
or disciplined group but at least it is divided into four groups, where conservative commanders are measured, linked to heroin and drugs, the Pakistani ISIS or the "New Taliban", more inclined to the Muslim Brotherhood.
But also because of its level of medievality, link with women and purdha, education for them or a wave of modernity, after 20 years at war, with social networks in between.
Members of the Taliban war in Kabul.
AP Photo
Baladar, who was detained by the Pakistani secret services because he had started peace talks with the pro-Western Afghan government of Karzai since Queta without Pakistan's knowledge,
was only released under pressure from President
Donald Trump, to lead the peace negotiations for the Taliban.
.
The Pakistanis had wanted to negotiate and exchange it with Nawab Bugti, the Balouche independence leader, who had taken refuge in Afghanistan and was a protégé of Karzai.
The Afghan government refused
.
Baladar remained in jail until the Dopha talks and Bugti took refuge in Switzerland to save his life with his family.
Specialists in Afghanistan believe that a group of the Taliban became closer to the Muslim Brothers
or Muslim Brotherhood
, the Sunni group now led by Recep Erdogan, the Turkish president, and the royal family of Qatar, in open rebellion against Saudi Arabia and the current Egyptian dictatorship Erdogan seeks to gain control of the commercial airport of Kabul, with the help of Qatar.
Not listed
Official efforts Monday to dispel the rumors appeared to deepen the mystery.
The Taliban released photos of a handwritten note
from one of Baradar's agents saying he was in Kandahar.
They then shared an audio message,
which was supposedly from Baradar, contrasted with old photos.
The absence of a video raised more questions among Afghans, as the Taliban are no longer a hidden insurgent group and Baradar's face is well known due to his international role.
"I was traveling.
Taking the opportunity of my absence, media activists began the propaganda, Me and every colleague are Ok.
News produces propaganda.
Deny these rumors.
We are all fine, "Baradar allegedly said in an audio, which is heard with interference.
Spokesperson Suhail Shaheen explained the rumors in English when he denied them on Twitter.
Mullah Bradar, Deputy Prime Minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, in a voice message rejected all such claims that he was injured or killed in a confrontation.
He says they are lies and totally unfounded, "he
wrote, using an alternate spelling of the leader's name.
The videos and a photo also shared online, purporting to show Baradar in Kandahar, did not show anything that could confirm when they were taken.
They were not dated.
They hid death
It is the group's background regarding the deaths of its figures or its internal Taliban disputes that fuel the theories.
Founding leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's death from tuberculosis
was hidden for six years
.
During that time, the Taliban continued to issue statements on their behalf.
Baradar was already seen as
having lost out
in internal Taliban disputes over the formation of the new government, according to the Afghanistan Network of Analysts.
Of the three men who were number 2 of the supreme leader of the group before the fall of Kabul, Baradar
was the only one who did not obtain a major ministry
.
Military leader Yaqub Omar, the son of the group's founding leader, was assigned the Ministry of Defense, and Sirajuddin Haqqani obtained the Ministry of the Interior.
The Afghanistan Analyst Network also noted that Akhundzada's absence from all public and private events, almost a month after the fall of Kabul,
suggested that he was no longer alive.
Analysts noted that even the lonely Mullah Omar made some public appearances, though not on video, when he ruled the country.
These included meeting with foreign officials and giving statements and radio interviews.
“It would be strange, therefore, if Haibatullah, now that the movement is in power, were alive and still so isolated.
For the moment, he seems to function as a symbolic figure
, which he can unify without appearing or speaking. "
The Haqqani live in the tribal area, in Waziristan especially, they have the fiercest and most conservative militias of the tribes, who have kidnapped Westerners and journalists for years during the “war on terror”.
PB
Look also
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