The Taliban’s Customs Directorate on Thursday announced that nearly 500 kilogrammes of explosives embedded in a commercial cargo has been discovered at Torkham border.
Taliban’s Customs officials said that this cargo belongs to Shams Amin company and was supposed to be transported from Pakistan to Afghanistan.
Taliban said that the driver and a representative of the company has been arrested and handed over to the security officials for further investigation.
On May 3, Taliban’s ministry of finance had said that some explosives had been discovered and seized from Torkham Customs.
The group’s ministry had said that the explosives was skilfully embedded in a commercial cargo to be smuggled into Afghanistan.
Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi has warned Taliban to allocate Sistan and Balochistan’s water right to them. During a trip to Sistan and Balochistan, Raisi stressed that Taliban must take this warning seriously and must not complain later that they had not been forewarned.
According to the Mashregh News, on Thursday, Raisi said, “The rulers of Afghanistan should allow our experts to come and check the truth of the matter. If our experts confirm that there is lack of water there then, we will have no say in the matter. However, we will not allow any violation of the people’s rights.”
Iranian president has said that his government is determined to pursue the issue of Iran’s water rights.
Raisi called on the Taliban and said, “I ask Afghanistan rulers to take my warning seriously and take immediate action, so that people of this region receive their rights.”
On Thursday, Chabahar is hosting a special meeting to follow up on Iran’s water rights. Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister also warned that the Taliban should open the Kajaki dam in Helmand province as soon as possible so that “people of Afghanistan and Iran, both get water”.
Amir Abdollahian during a call with Amir Khan Muttaqi, Taliban’s foreign minister, raised Iran’s demands. Amir Abdollahian and Muttaqi on Wednesday discussed Iran’s water rights during a phone call after the Iranian foreign minister met with his country’s officials in Chabahar.
Amir Abdollahian during a meeting, in which Kazemi Qomi, Iran’s ambassador in Kabul, was also present, said, “Our demand is clear. Taliban claims that the dam doesn’t have enough water, but we have clearly stated that according to the agreement of 1973, a joint technical team should determine it. We submitted the names of our technical team, so that they can visit Kajaki dam and judge if there is enough water or not.”
Earlier, the Taliban had said that they accept of Iran’s water rights. Muttaqi had said that if it rains a lot, water will be released to Iran as well. This comment caused a stir among some of the Iranian officials.
Moinuddin Saeedi, a member of Iran’s parliament said, “While migration from districts of Sistan and Balochistan increase due to lack of water, the Afghan side disrespectfully tells Iran to pray for rain.”
Mohammad Reza Bahrami, former ambassador of Iran in Kabul, has said that differences among Taliban political factions is serious and it is unlikely that these rifts will be contained soon.
Bahrami stressed that the Taliban's recognition has not been planned by any country as they can't trust the group.
Taliban has denied the internal disagreements, however, many countries and even United Nations’ officials also believe that the group is facing massive intra-group rifts.
Earlier, Scott Smith, the head of the political affairs of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), had said that a clear example of difference among the Taliban is the group’s different positions regarding the reopening of girls’ schools. According to Smith, Taliban in Kabul have differences with the Kandahari Taliban and Haqqani Network and they don’t know how to govern Afghanistan.
Bahrami on Wednesday at the ‘national conference of Afghanistan and prospect for the future’ which has been held in Iran said, “We must consider the fragility beside all the components of the Taliban's power.”
This former Iranian diplomat believes that there is no consensus about Afghanistan in the region and priorities of the regional countries are different.
According to him, the Western countries also have the ability to disrupt the current situation of the Taliban by using their military leverage, but they have no alternative.
The former ambassador of Iran in Afghanistan said that even if the countries are interacting with Taliban, they will not recognise the Taliban as a legitimate government.
Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, urged the Taliban to open the Kajaki Dam in Helmand province of Afghanistan as soon as possible so that “people of Afghanistan and Iran, both get water”.
Amir Abdollahian during a call with Amir Khan Muttaqi, Taliban’s foreign minister, raised Iran’s demands.
Amir Abdollahian and Muttaqi on Wednesday discussed Iran’s water rights during a phone call after the Iranian foreign minister met with his country’s officials in Chabahar.
According to Tasnim News Agency, Amir Abdollahian during a meeting, in which Kazemi Qomi, Iran’s ambassador in Kabul, was also present, said, “Our demand is clear. Taliban claims that the dam doesn’t have enough water, but we have clearly stated that according to the agreement of 1973, a joint technical team should determine it. We submitted the names of our technical team, so that they can visit Kajaki dam and judge if there is enough water or not.”
Earlier, the Taliban had said that they accept of Iran’s water rights. Amir Khan Muttaqi had said that if it rains a lot, water will be released to Iran as well. This comment caused a stir among some of the Iranian officials.
The appointment of Mawlawi Abdul Kabir as the Prime Minister of the Taliban indicates that the politics of the Taliban in Kabul is being managed by Rawalpindi and the Taliban leaders cannot even protest such decisions.
Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, who is known for his close ties with Pakistan’s military intelligence, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), has replaced Mullah Hassan Akhund, the Taliban’s prime minister.
According to credible sources, four days ago Mullah Hassan held his farewell ceremony in Kandahar in the presence of the Prime Minister and the head of Qatar's intelligence agency, while the news about his resignation from the Taliban premiership was published on Tuesday.
Recently, Mullah Hasan Akhund held fewer meetings with the people and officials, and instead, it was Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, who as the Deputy Prime Minister for Political Affairs, had more meetings with foreign officials and the Afghan public.
A decree which was attributed to the Taliban leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, announced the appointment of Abdul Kabir, as the new Prime Minister while Mullah Hassan Akhund quietly handed over his position to his former deputy.
According to the decree, Mullah Hassan Akhund has resigned from the position of Prime Minister due to illness.
While many in the Taliban and international powers such as the United States, consider Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the founders of the Taliban and a close ally to the group’s former leader, Mullah Omar, as the top choice to have succeeded Mullah Hasan Akhund, he still remains on the side lines and didn’t become the Prime Minister of the group. The Taliban’s other deputy prime minister, Abdul Salam Hanafi, also has a symbolic position.
In fact, Mullah Baradar has once again become a victim of past tense relations with Pakistan and his close relationship with former and current US officials such as Zalmay Khalilzad, Thomas West, and Rina Amiri.
Mullah Baradar is now officially a deputy to Mawlawi Abdul Kabir and this is an interesting development of the Taliban that should be closely watched.
Probably, in the coming days, we will see changes in the Taliban's caretaker cabinet, based on which those Taliban members with close ties to Pakistan and Al-Qaida may get appointed to senior positions.
Mawlawi Abdul Kabir is from Paktika province and it is said that he belongs to the Zadran tribe; one that is shared by the Taliban interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani. However, unlike Haqqani, he does not have armed forces or operational capability and has been present mostly in political positions within the Taliban.
Since being appointed as the deputy prime minister, Kabir has been conducting most of the political meetings with the opposition forces of the Taliban, representatives of the international community, and the United Nations in Sapidar Palace, and has shown more moderate position than the extremist circle of Kandahar.
He was previously the governor of Nangarhar during the former Taliban regime in the 1990s. It is said that after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, he was the head of Peshawar Council.
Kabir was later a member of the Taliban's negotiating team in Qatar, and after the fall of the Ghani government, he first became an assistant to Mullah Baradar, who has held the post of the deputy prime minister for economic affairs.
Mawlawi Abdul Kabir remains on the blacklist of the United Nations, and he, like more than ten other members of the Taliban, is not allowed to travel outside of Afghanistan.
According to the United Nations report, he was involved in terrorist activities and drug trafficking in Afghanistan.
He is originally from Paktika, but has lived in northern Baghlan province for many years. He is said to have been a landlord in Baghlan and was behind the bombing attack in Baghlan in 2007, which killed many members of the Afghan parliament, including Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, a former Shia Jihadi commander.
Yousuf Wafa, Taliban’s governor in Balkh province, met relatives of some of the group’s suicide attackers. Wafa's press office in a statement said that these people had been responsible for suicide attacks on important targets in Kabul and other provinces.
According to Wafa’s office, members of the families that met with Taliban Balkh governor had waged suicide attacks on Kabul Serena hotel, Balkh police headquarters, US military base in Parwan, Kandahar Airport, Intercontinental hotel and Chahar Bolak district in Bakh province.
During this meeting, the Taliban’s governor in Balkh stressed that the group’s administration has been formed based on sacrifice and for its survival, it has to be preserved by sacrifice.
According to the statement, Wafa articulated to the relatives present there that “it is our responsibility to fulfil the goals of the suicide attackers”.
This Taliban official added that the door of the group’s elders and officials is always open to the kin of the suicide attackers. He also distributed some cash to their families.
During the past 20 years of Taliban’s war with the previous government of Afghanistan and international forces, thousands of civilians, including women and children, have been killed due to the group’s suicide attacks.
On February 21, 2022, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, Taliban’s minister of promotion of virtues and prevention of vice, said that no group executed more suicide attacks than the Taliban in history.
After seizing power in Afghanistan in 2021, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s minister of interior, for the first time, met and appeased some of the relatives of the suicide attackers of the group at the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul.
Haqqani called the suicide attackers as “champions of Islam and the country”.
During a gathering in Kandahar province, Sirajuddin Haqqani in early 2022 had said that 1,500 individuals are ready for suicide attacks. According to him, these people want to join the “martyrs caravan” with suicide attacks.
Taliban officials have repeatedly consoled relatives of the suicide bombers and called them pillars of their 20 years of jihad. At the moment, Taliban’s interior ministry has a unit of suicide bombers named as the Badri Unit and the group’s ministry of defence also manages Omari and Mansoori units of suicide bombers which were included in the military parade of Taliban for their first anniversary of victory on August 15.