Contributed by Ray White, CEO – LIPR London
As part of its effort to re-establish its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban have now unveiled its caretaker government. Although some of the group’s senior officials have said that the government will be more inclusive, the majority of its ministers were appointed by the Afghan Elders.
The new government, which was announced on April 30, consists of only members of the Taliban’s senior leadership. None of the individuals named were women, and the group did not include any prominent politicians.
Out of the 33 individuals named to senior positions in the Taliban, over 30 percent are ethnic Pashtun.
The prime minister of the Taliban is Mullah Mohammad Hassan, who is relatively unknown outside the organization. He is a close confidant of the group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. His first deputy is Mullah Abdul Rahman, who is also known as Abdul Ghani Baradar. The other two deputy Emirs are Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mohammad Yaqoub.
Although the emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada, did not explicitly explain his role in the interim government, his presence was widely acknowledged by the Taliban.
The formation of the interim government has been shrouded in mystery. There has been no clear sign that the movement’s top leaders are united in their efforts to form a government.
The new government ministries were allocated in large part to ensure that the individuals who were appointed were held in the same roles as those who were already in the group’s Leadership Council. Several of the new ministers have already held senior positions in the group. For any perceived imbalance in the new cabinet, which is mainly composed of figures from southern Afghanistan, the Leadership Council has existed long before.
Several key positions in the cabinet were left vacant due to the lack of military commanders with significant experience in the group’s insurgency phase. The Taliban did not appoint any women to their new cabinet, only a few ethnic minorities — and even those were already senior figures within the movement itself.
When a spokesperson was asked about the Taliban’s promise that they might form an “inclusive government” that would serve all Afghans, he replied that these appointments were temporary — but did not say how long the government would serve or what would precipitate its change.
The greatest challenges the Taliban government face are economic and humanitarian. Afghanistan was already facing multiple humanitarian crises before the Taliban returned to power. Forced displacement due to war, rising poverty and severe food insecurity, the impact of COVID-19 and a regionwide drought.
At the same time, a great deal of foreign funding and assistance, on which the previous Afghan government was heavily dependent for the last 20 years, has been put on hold by the World Bank and other international institutions. The U.S. government has also frozen most of the previous government’s liquid assets.
Even the Talibans were surprised by the speed with which the Afghan government collapsed, allowing them to enter Kabul. As they attempt to form a transition national government after several decades of militancy, they are also likely perceive a number of threats. These include armed resistance in the Panjshir Valley and the local branch of the Islamic State, which proved its ability to impose death and destruction in a bombing at the Kabul airport amid evacuation efforts. How the Taliban government addresses each perceived threat is yet to be seen.
Donor states should begin untangling the potential restrictions and ramifications of engaging with the Taliban’s new government, twenty members of whom are subject to U.N. sanctions. Humanitarian and development assistance should be swiftly resumed to the greatest extent possible, as neutrally and independently as possible.
