MESOP WATCH BACKGROUNDER: Profiles Of Afghan Taliban Ministers – Interior Minister Is On FBI’s Most Wanted List, 14 Ministers Including Prime Minister Are On UN Security Council’s Terror Blacklist

Special Dispatch No. 9566 29.9.2021

Profiles Of Afghan Taliban Ministers – Interior Minister Is On FBI’s Most Wanted List, 14 Ministers Including Prime Minister Are On UN Security Council’s Terror Blacklist

On August 15, 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban jihadi organization) seized power in Afghanistan. On September 7, it announced an interim government, declaring a list of 32 acting ministers and the prime minister. Two weeks later, on September 21, the jihadi group released a second list of 16 acting ministers. As of September 24, the Taliban ministers have not been sworn in, but they have taken up their ministerial positions and are enforcing their orders.

At least 14 of the 33 ministers whose names were announced on September 7 are on the United Nations Security Council’s terrorism blacklist, including acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund and both of his deputies – Mullah Baradar Akhund and Mawlavi Hanafi. Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob, Foreign Minister Mullah Ameer Khan Muttaqi, and Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai are also designated terrorists under the UN Security Council’s 1988 Sanctions Committee.

In the Taliban government set-up, the most influential man is Sirajuddin Haqqani – the new interior minister who remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The FBI website, listing Sirajuddin Haqqani on its Most Wanted page, notes: “Sirajuddin Haqqani is wanted for questioning in connection with the January 2008 attack on a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed six people, including an American citizen. He is believed to have coordinated and participated in cross-border attacks against United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Haqqani also allegedly was involved in the planning of the assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2008.”

Sirajuddin Haqqani carries a reward of $10 million. In February 2021, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Afghan Taliban’s operational chief and major terror mastermind, delivered a major speech to a gathering of jihadi terror commanders where he, fearing that the U.S. could rescind the Doha agreement, issued a sharp warning to America: “[After 9/11] we fought them with faith and with weaker military strength. Today we have both. We have the technology to use drones, we have our own missiles. This time if the mujahideen resume fighting, it would be something they have never seen before. They will wish the battlefield was like in the past.”

According to a media report, the first list of 33 ministers included four of the five jihadi leaders known as the “Taliban Five” who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay prison: Mullah Mohammad Fazil (deputy defense minister), Khairullah Khairkhah (information and culture minister), Mullah Noorullah Noori (borders and tribal affairs minister), and Mullah Abdul Haq Wasiq (Director of Intelligence), while the fifth member, Mohammad Nabi Omari, was appointed as the Taliban’s governor of Khost province.

The Taliban Five leaders were freed from Guantanamo Bay prison in 2014 in exchange for U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl who wandered away from his camp in Afghanistan and was captured by the Taliban. The first contacts to negotiate his freedom by the U.S. became the earliest seeds of talks and later peace negotiations between the U.S. and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Minister Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund (centre), PM’s first deputy Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (right) and second deputy Mawlavi Abdul Salam Hanafi (left)

The following profiles of the Taliban ministers are prepared from a September 8 report by the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), a pro-Taliban news agency that for years functioned from the Pakistani city of Peshawar:

1. Acting Prime Minister: Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund

A member of Babar tribe, Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund hails from Arghandab District of Kandahar province. During the 1996-2001 Taliban government, he served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. He is around 65 years old, is one of the founding members of the Taliban movement, and is a close aide of Mullah Mohammad Omar.

He was a member of the jihad party led by the late Maulvi Mohammad Khalis during the jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and was a member and acting head of the Taliban Leadership Council after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund is on the UN sanction list.

2. Acting First Deputy PM: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is a native of Dehrawad district of Uruzgan province. He is around 65 years old and belongs to the Popalzai tribe. He was a member of Maulvi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi’s jihad party during the jihad against the former Soviet Union in the 1980s. He was a frontline commander in the 1996-2001 Taliban government.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is a well-known Taliban leader who was brought from prison in Pakistan to Doha where he led the negotiations with the U.S., resulting in the signing of the Doha agreement on February 29, 2020. He was a member of the Taliban’s Leadership Council after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001 and was later appointed as deputy emir of the jihadi organization. His name is also on the UN sanctions list.