Taliban say they have entered capital of holdout Panjshir valley.
Will the Taliban announce the formation of their government on September 11 to coincide with the 9/11 attacks anniversary? This buzz is gaining traction as the group once again postponed the government announcement on Saturday. Taliban spokesperson Zabihulla Mujahid has maintained that the reason for the delay is all factions working to arrive at a consensus. The Taliban is not a unified group with a central command structure. Rather, it constitutes of several factions and former warlords and sympathizers. Now that the group has taken over Afghanistan, these factions are demanding their share in the power structure. As of now, the tentative contours that have emerged from Kabul and elsewhere say that 50 per cent of the government will constitute of the Taliban men. The rest of the 50 per cent will be divided among the Haqqani network, Jamiat e Islami Afghanistan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. An AP report said that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s brother is also likely to get some representation. Amid this factionalism, there is an issue of female voices in the new Taliban government. The group has said that though there is no question of women as some ministers, they can get low-ranking jobs.
Cities such as Herat and Kabul are witnessing rare protests by women who are staging sit-ins demanding fair representation in the new Afghan government. While these are the factors within the country, there are many outside Afghanistan who may be playing a covert game. The prime actor is Pakistan. On Saturday, ISI Chief visited Kabul.

Meanwhile, the Taliban and opposition forces battled on Saturday to control the Panjshir Valley, the last Afghan province holding out against the Taliban, as the top US general warned of a “civil war” if the Islamists failed to consolidate power, reported Reuters. Both sides claimed to have the upper hand in Panjshir but neither could produce conclusive evidence to prove it.

свернуть