Afghan Interior Minister-appointed Sirajuddin Haqqani is wanted by the United States, which is offering a $ 5 million (about € 4.22 million) reward for his capture.
Haqqani, on the FBI’s most wanted list, still holds at least one American hostage, according to the Associated Press. The future Taliban minister has spearheaded the Haqqani network, which has been credited with many deadly attacks and kidnappings.
On Tuesday, the Taliban announced the creation of an all-male interim government hours after gunfire to disperse protesters in the capital, Kabul, and the arrest of several journalists. The appointed government has been joined by several veteran extremists of the 1990s and nearly twenty years of war against the US-led coalition.
Mohammad Hassan Akhund will become the head of the new Afghan government, a Taliban spokesman said on Tuesday, more than three weeks after the Islamic extremist movement came to power. Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar will be number two in the new leadership, Zabihullah Mujahid said at a news conference in Kabul.
According to the Associated Press, Mullah Hasan Akhund led the Taliban government in the last years of his previous regime (1996-2001). [designação dada a um muçulmano, educado na teologia islâmica e na lei sagrada] Baradar, who negotiated with the US and signed an agreement to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, is one of his two deputies.
The spokesman also announced the appointment of Mullah Yakub (son of “Mullah” Omar, founder of the movement and de facto head of state of Afghanistan under the previous regime) as Minister of Defense and Sirajuddin Haqqani (leader of the Haqqani network, a guerrilla group). affiliated with al-Qaeda, which is responsible for security in Kabul) with internal organs. Amir Khan Muttaki, Taliban negotiator in Doha, will head the foreign ministry.
After nearly two decades of US and NATO military presence, the Taliban seized power in Kabul on August 15, completing a swift offensive that took control of the capitals of 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces in just ten days.
