Taliban set to announce govt in Kabul after Friday prayer

DM Monitoring

KABUL: Over two weeks after overtaking power in Afghanistan, the Taliban are all set to form a government in the country on Friday.According to details, Taliban will form the government after Friday prayers today. Notably, the Taliban government has reached a final stage of formalization with the first announcement of the new Cabinet of Ministers on Friday.As per a report by Bloomberg, Taliban supreme commander Haibatullah Akhundzada will be the top leader of the governing council. On the other hand, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of Akhundzada’s three deputies and the main public face of the Taliban, is likely to be in charge of the daily functioning of the government.
“The consultations on forming an inclusive Afghan government within the Islamic Emirate’s leaders, with the leaders from previous government and other influential leaders have officially ended,” Bilal Karimi, a member of the group’s cultural commission, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “They have reached a consensus. We’re about to announce a functioning cabinet and government in a few days, not weeks,” he added. Earlier, the Taliban had said that it was planning an inclusive caretaker government in Afghanistan.
An Al Jazeera report cited a Taliban source saying that the caretaker government will include leaders from all ethnicities and tribal backgrounds in the country. The Taliban, however, did not mention the duration of the caretaker government. It must be noted that Afghanistan’s ethnic diversity has been at the centre of politics and conflict in the country, with no single-ethnic group enjoying a decisive majority in the country of 40 million people. As per reports, the key ministries in the new government will be judiciary, internal security, defence, foreign affairs, finance, information and a special assignment for Kabul’s affairs.
Ahead of forming the government, the Taliban’s top leaders in Kabul on Wednesday had initiated talks on setting up a new government. According to reports, hectic negotiations were going on between Taliban leadership and the Haqqani Network over the formation of government in Afghanistan. Reports also suggested that the militants have designed a government based on Iran’s model, an Islamic republic where the Supreme Leader is the head of state and the highest-ranking political and religious authority even above the president.