Two recent news has attracted much attention, the first of which is cnn news channel 18 reporting that Taliban leader Akhonzada was killed in an attack in Pakistan last year. The second is that, the Greek City Times reported that there have been numerous armed clashes between the forces of the political faction led by Baradal and the military factions centered on the Haqqani network in Kabul, Helmand and Kandahar provinces, with dozens of casualties every day.
The Taliban leader Akhonzada is indeed a very mysterious figure, and there is no recording of his public speeches now, months after the Taliban have seized Kabul. Ahunzada also never appeared, and no recordings appeared. In August, Taliban spokesman Mujahid confirmed that the group's top leader, Akhonzada, is currently inside Afghanistan and will soon be seen. However, after 3 months, Akhonzada still has not heard from him.
This does not help but make one wonder if Ahuzada may have died or been sick in recuperation. The second thing, in fact, is that within the Taliban there are many factions, the largest of which are the three factions, the Baradar faction, the Haqqani faction, and the Omar faction.
When the Taliban was founded, it was a highly feudal armed force, with a standing army of only 20,000 people, and tens of thousands of other militias. There is no salary in peacetime, and if you win a battle, you can share the spoils together. Later, when U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban's governors became shadow governors and shadow county governors, fighting each other.
It wasn't until Mansour came to power in 2014 that some central mobile units were integrated. By 2016, under the unification of Pakistan, the military forces of the various shadow governors had also been integrated, and a military commission had been established to lead it. At this time, the Taliban's direct power grew to 70,000 people. In the final stage of the seizure of power, the Taliban incorporated a number of small and medium-sized warlords who had defected from the old regime, and now the Taliban has about 100,000 armed forces.
There are three main factions in the Taliban, the first being the Akhonzada and Baradar factions, including the previous leader, Mansour, who used to come from the school where Omar was the principal, and all of whom were teachers at that school. He was also an important member of the Taliban's first wave of 800 creation teams, and also served as an assistant to Omar.
The Haqqani network is The largest underground group in Afghanistan, and they control most of the smuggling routes in Afghanistan. It was only later that they joined the Taliban collectively as allies, and they did not belong to the Taliban founding team. Founder Jalaleddin Haqqani died in 2018 and is now succeeded by his sons Jalaludin Haqqani and Anas Haqqani.
The Little Omar faction consisted mainly of old courtiers loyal to Omar and radical young factions. Moreover, the various factions of the Taliban are so complex that in the capital, Kabul, the commander of the Kabul Legion is Hamdullah, a faction of the Baradar faction. But on the outskirts of Kabul, the commander of the Lagman Army, Abdel. Jana is the power of the Haqqani Network Group.
The Akhonzada and Baradar factions are deeply at odds with the Haqqani faction. According to media reports, they had many fierce quarrels, and even assistants came up to quarrel. Finally, Baradal went to Kandahar for a period of seclusion.
The United States has reported that among the Taliban, the Akhnzada-Baradal faction can control about 28,000 to 40,000 troops, the little Omar can control about 25,000 to 37,000 troops, and the other 20,000 or 30,000 are under the control of the Haqqani network.
Among the Taliban, moderates and radicals, pro-Pakistan and anti-Pakistani, pro-American and anti-American, are fiercely at war. Especially now that half of Afghanistan's population is mired in food famine and external investment is almost cut off, there may be even greater fighting within the Taliban.