Afghanistan will not be a democracy under the Taliban rule and the country will be governed by the Sharia, or Islamic law, one of the senior leaders of the militant group, Waheedullah Hashimi, told Reuters on Wednesday.
In an interview to the news agency, Hashimi said that Afghanistan may be governed by a ruling council headed by Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada. The Taliban would also reach out to former pilots and soldiers from the Afghan armed forces to join its ranks, Waheedullah Hashimi, who has access to the group’s decision-making, added in an interview.
The power structure that Hashimi outlined would bear similarities to how Afghanistan was run the last time the Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001. Then, supreme leader Mullah Omar remained in the shadows and left the day-to-day running of the country to a council.
Akhundzada would likely play a role above the head of the council, who would be akin to the country’s president, Hashimi added.
“Maybe his (Akhundzada’s) deputy will play the role of ‘president’,” Hashimi said, speaking in English.
The Taliban’s supreme leader has three deputies: Mawlavi Yaqoob, son of Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the powerful militant Haqqani network, and Abdul Ghani Baradar, who heads the Taliban’s political office in Doha and is one of the founding members of the group.
“There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country,” he said. “We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it.”