Islamabad: The Taliban expanded its interim cabinet last week by including new members, all men and several of them from non-Pashtun ethnic groups, in an attempt to satisfy the global community which has been insisting that their government should be inclusive. However, not a single woman has been included in the cabinet so far. After including 17 new members - which included representatives from the Hazara, Tajik and Uzbek ethnic groups - the strength of the Afghan caretaker government reached 50. In the first phase, Taliban had announced names of 33 ministers on September 7.
Announcing the cabinet expansion at a press conference, Zabihullah Mujahid, deputy minister for information and culture, said he was hopeful that the international community would recognise their government in the near future. Two veteran battlefield commanders from the Taliban movement’s southern heartlands were also appointed as deputies in important ministries. Mujahid said Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir will be deputy defence minister, while Sadr Ibrahim was named deputy minister for the interior. The two were identified in UN reports as being among battlefield commanders loyal to the former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour who were pressing the leadership to step up the war against the Western-backed government. The appointments add to the roster of hardliners in the main group of ministers, which included figures like Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the militant Haqqani network.
On women’s affairs ministry and girls’ education, Mujahid simply said that the government was working to address women’s demands for work and education. He also hinted that women might be added to the cabinet later.
Taliban hang bodies at Herat city squares
The Taliban hung the bodies of four kidnappers from cranes after killing them during a shootout in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat last week, a senior official said. Herat province’s deputy governor Mawlawi Shir Ahmad Muhajir said the men’s corpses were displayed in various public areas on the same day as the killings to teach a “lesson” that kidnapping will not be tolerated.
Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy in Herat, said that four bodies were brought to the main square and three bodies were moved to other parts of the city for public display. Seddiqi said the Taliban announced that the four were caught taking part in a kidnapping and were killed by police. Graphic images posted to social media showed bloody bodies on the back of a pick-up truck while a crane hoisted one man up. A crowd of people looked on as armed Taliban fighters gathered around the vehicle. Another video showed a man suspended from a crane at a major roundabout in Herat with a sign on his chest reading: “Abductors will be punished like this”.
Taliban nominate UN envoy
The Taliban have nominated an ambassador to represent Afghanistan at the United Nations, UN officials said, injecting a new twist into what was already a delicate diplomatic quandary in the global organisation. The nomination, submitted to secretary-general Antonio Guterres, sets up a showdown with the envoy of Afghanistan’s toppled government, Ghulam Isaczai, who has so far retained his post. The showdown may not be resolved soon. But it raised the startling prospect that the Taliban - the violent, extremist Islamic movement that retook power last month as the US-backed government collapsed - would occupy an ambassador’s seat at the UN.
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for Guterres, confirmed that the secretary-general had been notified of the Taliban request in a letter signed by Amir Khan Muttaqi, identified as the movement’s foreign minister. The letter stated that the Taliban’s choice of UN ambassador was Suhail Shaheen, the movement’s spokesperson based in Doha, Qatar. The letter further stated that Muttaqi wanted to speak at the General Assembly, which began last week.
Executions and amputations to return
One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public. In an interview, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers. “Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.” Since the Taliban overran Kabul on August 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will recreate their harsh rule of the late 1990s. Turabi’s comments pointed to how the group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, like video and mobile phones.
