Taliban announce appointment of new provincial governors, deputies, military commanders

Kabul: The Taliban on Sunday unveiled the names of new provincial governors, deputy governors and military commanders. Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid in a statement said that Qari Baryal has been appointed governor of Kabul, Mufti Mohammad Idrees will serve as his deputy and Wali Jan Hamza will be the military commander of the Afghan capital, reported The Express Tribune. Taliban on Tuesday had appointed governors and military commanders on key positions at the provincial level on the directives of the group’s supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. The interim Afghanistan government headed by Akhunzada appointed Abdul Ghani governor of Badakhshan province, Muhammad Ali governor of Paktia province, Nisar Ahmad governor of Kunduz province while Qari Bakhtiar and Haji Mali Khan have been appointed as governors of Baghlan and Logar provinces, respectively, reported The Express Tribune. Likewise, Abdullah Mukhtar will serve as governor of Paktika province, Abdullah Sarhadi of Bamyan, Haji Dawat of Uruzgan, Rouhani Sahib of Farah, Abdul Rehman Sar-e-Pol and Shoaib of Jowzjan. Ishaq Akhunzada has been appointed governor of Ghazni province. The development comes days after the Taliban supreme leader warned against the danger of turncoats and infiltrators. Reflecting the seriousness of the threat, the reclusive Haibatullah Akhundzada issued a rare written public statement to urge Taliban commanders to purge their ranks, reported The Express Tribune. In it, he said: “All those elders of their groups must look inside their ranks and see if there is any unknown entity working against the will of the government, which must be eradicated as soon as possible”. “Whatever wrong happens, the elder will be responsible for the consequences of the actions in this world and in the afterlife,” he warned, in a statement tweeted out by multiple Taliban accounts.