3 top Taliban commanders may be sidelined due to fraught relationship with Pak

New Delhi, Sep 14 Three Taliban commanders with significant military presence may have been sidelined because of their fraught relationship with Pakistan.

Other commanders with significant military presence, who might have been expected to get cabinet positions, are not represented at all, said Martine van Bijlert of Afghanistan Analysts Network.

In particular, two major commanders from the south, Sadr Ibrahim, head of the military commission for the western zone and a close associate of the previous supreme leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur, who had taken the interior ministry after the Taleban captured Kabul on August 15, and Qayyum Zakir, head of the military commission for the eastern zone, who had taken defence, do not have posts in the new cabinet.

Also missing is Gul Agha Ishaqzai, the powerful head of the Taleban finance commission and another close associate both of Mullah Omar and Mansur.

"They may have lost out in the complicated regional and tribal balancing act or became sidelined because of their fraught relationship with Pakistan," Bijlert said.

These three men remain, for now, in the leadership council, which is expected to carry on as the major Taleban decision-making body and where a number of the new ministers and vice ministers will probably also keep their membership. This suggests there may be parallel decision-making, i.e., not just in the cabinet, but also in the still-existing leadership council.

Abdul Ghani Baradar was one of three deputies to the Taleban's Amir ul-Muminen