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New Taliban chief marks a return to the roots - INTERNATIONAL - The Hindu
New Taliban chief marks a return to the roots
The early tenure of the Taliban’s new leader, a low-key religious scholar seen as a potential unifier, has been notable for lacking the drama his predecessor seemed unable to shake.
But even after two months in the role, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada remains something of a mystery to the Taliban rank and file, according to analysts and insurgent commanders. And he has yet to make any high-profile mark on an insurgency that is stretched by internal divisions.
Lacking grip over party?
Many view him as lacking the grip and influence that his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had amassed before being killed in an American drone strike in May. Mansour’s tenure was marked by purges and open rebellion that have receded into the background. Despite that, some commanders have refused to pledge allegiance to Mawlawi — a title reserved for Islamic scholars — Haibatullah, according to interviews with Taliban commanders and officials.
From the first days of the hasty leadership meetings that elevated Haibatullah, it was clear that the Taliban’s decision-making power was returning to the insurgency’s senior council based in Quetta, Pakistan — a politburo of about two dozen clerics and fighters.
A scholar, not a fighter
Haibatullah’s perceived strengths, and the very traits that made him attractive as a potential unifier, lie in a slower kind of influence: his shunning of the limelight and his deep ties to the radical religious schools that for years have provided the Taliban with an ideological core of committed fighters.
“Mawlawi Haibatullah’s area of influence is with the mullahs and the religious leaders, not the management and the commanders,” said Borhan Osman, a researcher with the Afghanistan Analysts Network who has written extensively about the Taliban. How Haibatullah fares will depend on the space he can carve with the dozen influential members of the senior council, or shura , who “call the shots,” Mr. Osman said.
In some ways, Haibatullah’s selection is a return to the roots of the Taliban insurgency. In those years, little was known about the Taliban’s top echelon. Rarely photographed or filmed, they amounted to myths.
Both for his modest upbringing and for his quiet ways, Mawlawi Haibatullah, now in his 50s, is sometimes compared to the movement’s founding leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, who abhorred publicity — in part out of a belief that he derived his legitimacy from a connection to God and not from a popular mandate. — New York Times News Service
New Taliban chief marks a return to the roots
The early tenure of the Taliban’s new leader, a low-key religious scholar seen as a potential unifier, has been notable for lacking the drama his predecessor seemed unable to shake.
But even after two months in the role, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada remains something of a mystery to the Taliban rank and file, according to analysts and insurgent commanders. And he has yet to make any high-profile mark on an insurgency that is stretched by internal divisions.
Lacking grip over party?
Many view him as lacking the grip and influence that his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had amassed before being killed in an American drone strike in May. Mansour’s tenure was marked by purges and open rebellion that have receded into the background. Despite that, some commanders have refused to pledge allegiance to Mawlawi — a title reserved for Islamic scholars — Haibatullah, according to interviews with Taliban commanders and officials.
From the first days of the hasty leadership meetings that elevated Haibatullah, it was clear that the Taliban’s decision-making power was returning to the insurgency’s senior council based in Quetta, Pakistan — a politburo of about two dozen clerics and fighters.
A scholar, not a fighter
Haibatullah’s perceived strengths, and the very traits that made him attractive as a potential unifier, lie in a slower kind of influence: his shunning of the limelight and his deep ties to the radical religious schools that for years have provided the Taliban with an ideological core of committed fighters.
“Mawlawi Haibatullah’s area of influence is with the mullahs and the religious leaders, not the management and the commanders,” said Borhan Osman, a researcher with the Afghanistan Analysts Network who has written extensively about the Taliban. How Haibatullah fares will depend on the space he can carve with the dozen influential members of the senior council, or shura , who “call the shots,” Mr. Osman said.
In some ways, Haibatullah’s selection is a return to the roots of the Taliban insurgency. In those years, little was known about the Taliban’s top echelon. Rarely photographed or filmed, they amounted to myths.
Both for his modest upbringing and for his quiet ways, Mawlawi Haibatullah, now in his 50s, is sometimes compared to the movement’s founding leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, who abhorred publicity — in part out of a belief that he derived his legitimacy from a connection to God and not from a popular mandate. — New York Times News Service