ISLAMABAD, 11 Jun: The Taliban condemned on Sunday a \u201cbaseless and biased\u201d report from the U.N. Security Council highlighting rifts within the group’s ranks.
\nThe last seven months have seen a greater shift of power from the capital Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, a Taliban heartland and the base of the group’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
\nA report \u2014 issued earlier in June \u2014 by the U.N. Security Council\u2019s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said that the Taliban governance structures remain \u201chighly exclusionary, Pashtun-centred and repressive\u201d toward all forms of opposition.
\nIt also said Kandahar’s return as the seat of power \u2014 like it was during the Taliban\u2019s rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s \u2014 circumvents senior Taliban ministers in Kabul, the center of the current government, because of the way decisions are made.
\nKey figures, such as the Taliban\u2019s main spokesman, have set up offices in the south of Kandahar. Monumental decrees such as those excluding women and girls from education and work were issued from the city instead of Kabul.
\nThe report also said the group was battling internal conflict over key policies, the centralization of power and the control of financial and natural resources in Afghanistan. Ongoing power struggles are further destabilizing the situation, to the point where an outbreak of armed conflict between rival factions is a manifest risk, the report added.
\nThe Taliban’s main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the report\u2019s \u201caccusations\u201d of strife, saying they were baseless and demonstrated \u201cobvious hostility\u201d to Afghans.
\nRumors of disagreement between the group’s leaders are a continuation of the propaganda of the past 20 years, he said. \u201cThe publication of such biased and baseless reports by the Security Council does not help Afghanistan and international peace and security, rather, it increases worry among the people (Afghans).\u201d
\nThe report described the Taliban leader, Akhundzada, as \u201creclusive and elusive\u201d and said he had elaborate measures to ensure his safety while holding meetings.
\nIt also cited an unnamed U.N. Security Council member state as saying Akhundzada had survived two bouts of COVID-19, leaving his respiratory system weakened, in addition to existing kidney problems, leading to suggestions that senior Taliban figures are waiting for his health to lead to a natural succession.
\n\u201cHibatullah has been proudly resistant to external pressure to moderate his policies,\u201d the June 1 report said. \u201cThere is no indication that other Kabul-based Taliban leaders can influence policy substantially. There is little prospect of change in the near to medium term.\u201d
\nThe Taliban say their orders align with their interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic law.
\nSince last November, the Taliban have barred women from most public spaces, university education, and most jobs, including at local and international nongovernmental groups. Girls have already been banned from school beyond sixth grade.
\nIn recent days, the Taliban have also sought to exclude all foreign organizations from the education sector, a move the U.N. secretary-general\u2019s chief spokesman, St\u00e9phane Dujarric, said Thursday would be another \u201chorrendous step backward\u201d for Afghan people.
\nAid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover in August 2021 and the economic collapse that followed it. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD, 11 Jun: The Taliban condemned on Sunday a \u201cbaseless and biased\u201d report from the U.N. Security Council highlighting rifts within the group’s ranks. The last seven months have seen a greater shift of power from the capital Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, a Taliban heartland and the base of the group’s supreme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-218195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}