Members of the Haqqani Network announced that on Friday, April 16, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban administration, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting Minister of Interior Affairs, jointly laid the foundation stone for a large mosque in Kajaki district of Helmand province. According to the announcement, this act took place during the visit of these two senior officials to Kajaki.<\/p>\n
This is the first time that the Taliban leader and Sirajuddin Haqqani have publicly inaugurated a project together. The event comes amid numerous earlier reports of disputes between the Taliban leader and the Haqqani Network over the division of political power, military control, and financial resources.<\/p>\n
Some observers interpret this joint action as an effort to demonstrate internal cohesion among different factions within the Taliban administration \u2013 a subject that has been a matter of speculation in recent years.<\/p>\n
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada and Sirajuddin Haqqani are considered key figures in the last two decades of warfare in Afghanistan. During the former republic period, multiple armed, explosive, and suicide attacks targeted military and civilian locations across the country, reportedly organized under their leadership and affiliated structures.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, since the Taliban regained control, poverty and hunger have worsened in the country, and girls beyond the sixth grade remain barred from attending school. Despite this situation, the Taliban administration continues to focus on constructing and expanding mosques and religious schools; a move criticized by some citizens and civil activists as neglecting the fundamental priorities of the people, including education, employment, and social services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taliban leaders Mullah Akhundzada and Sirajuddin Haqqani jointly lay foundation stone for a major mosque in Helmand amid internal power tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}