The Taliban's Internal Dynamics: Marginalisation of Badakhshani Taliban Commanders?
Reports of the downsizing of over a thousand security personnel from Badakhshan
On 29 May 2025, the media published documents showing that the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) had recently dismissed 4,403 of its personnel from different levels of the MoD. Among those dismissed were 1,001 personnel from Badakhshan, reportedly affiliated with the Taliban’s Chief of Army Staff, Fasihuddin Fitrat, and other Taliban commanders from Badakhshan such as Abdul Qahar Mutawakil, Samiaullah Rasul, Sayed Mir Khanjar, Mawlawi Saifuddin Azizi, and Mawlawi Amanuddin Mansur (see Afghanistan International’s report here). Citing local sources, Hasht-e Sobh put the “exact number” of the dismissed Badakhshani personnel at 1,009, including those who were recruited into the Taliban’s security force units after their takeover of Afghanistan (see Hasht-e Sobh’s report here).
The dismissal of security personnel from Badakhshan is part of the broader downsizing decreed by Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada on 27 March 2025. After a meeting on 4 April, the Taliban’s Central Security and Clearance Commission issued detailed instructions to the security agencies, outlining criteria for this downsizing. The commission prioritised the dismissal of “hated and undesirable” individuals. This category was followed by those who joined the Taliban after their takeover, and then by old people or those with limited jihadi backgrounds (see this 21 April 2025 report by Afghanistan International).
Dismissal of Badakhshan University lecturers
Last month, the Taliban dismissed 36 university lecturers from Badakhshan University, a majority of whom were female. Hasht-e Sobh published the list of dismissed lecturers on 15 May 2025. This mass termination, however, appears to be part of the broader downsizing within the higher education sector implemented by the Taliban.
The author heard from sources that the downsizing included three categories: (1) female lecturers and professors: women who had been receiving their salary without having to report to work since the Taliban’s ban on female instructors; (2) near-retirement personnel: those who were approaching their retirement age; and (3) ideological targets: the individuals sacked by the Taliban for their thoughts and manners considered unacceptable by the Taliban.
Marginalisation of Tajik commanders?
The dismissal of security personnel came hot on the heels of a protest in Jurm district after a clash between the Taliban security forces and local farmers left one local resident dead and several others wounded. While the confrontation was over the Taliban’s destruction of opium poppy cultivation, there were reports that a deeper undercurrent of anger among the Badakhshani Taliban commanders regarding the Taliban leadership’s increasing control of the provincial affairs was the true driving force behind both the clash and the subsequent protests (see the author’s previous Substack on the protests here).
It’s therefore unsurprising that the dismissal of a large number of security personnel from Badakhshan has led to further reports of the divide between the Taliban core and their Badakhshani commanders. A column published by Etilaat Roz on 3 June 2025 interpreted the dismissal as an indication of the “decline of Tajik Taliban’s military and economic power” within the Taliban’s government and the tightening of the Taliban leadership’s grip on Badakhshan mines. The column also cited a meeting held in Badakhshan two weeks earlier as further evidence. Haji Muhammad Yousuf Wafa, the Taliban governor for Balkh and a close confidante of Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, convened a meeting of the governors, chiefs of police and heads of provincial intelligence from nine northern provinces in Badakhshan. Wafa’s decision to hold the meeting in Badakhshan, the columnist suggested, signaled a message to Fitrat that Badakhshan and other northern provinces were now under Wafa’s direct command. According to the columnist, Wafa, while officially the governor of Balkh, effectively acts as the political and military commander of the Taliban in the north. His provincial office reported that during the meeting, he stressed the need for “transparent extraction of Badakhshan mines.”
However, alienating their Badakhshani members will not be an easy choice for the Taliban. The province has contributed many members to the Taliban, including the following three prominent figures.
Qari Din Muhammad Hanif was appointed as Minister of Economy in the first round of 33 appointments on 7 September 2021, a position he has retained since then. Qari Hanif, son of the late Qari Muhammad Nazir, was born in Spin Arzanchi village of Yaftal Sufla district of Badakhshan province in 1342 [1963]. Hanif joined the Taliban after their rise, along with hundreds of other talibs (religious students) from Badakhshan. After their takeover of Kabul until the end of their rule in late 2001, Hanif served first as the Minister of Planning and then as the Minister of Higher Education. After the Taliban’s insurgency started, he was initially responsible for the group’s activities in Badakhshan in 2003. In 2004, he was appointed as a member of the political commission and also, based on a decree by the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar Mujahed, as a member of the Leadership Council. Hanif was a member of the Negotiating Team and in charge of the relations with the Central Asia countries in the political office (see his biography published by the Taliban on 12 September 2020 and an English translation by AAN here)
Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat was appointed Chief of the Army in the first round of 33 appointments on 7 September 2021, a position he has retained since then. He is from Isterab village in Warduj district. He served in different positions during the Taliban’s insurgency. In 2013, the Taliban appointed him as shadow governor and head of the military commission in Badakhshan (see AAN’s 3 January 2017 report here). He then became a member of the Taliban’s Peshawar Shura and the Central Military Commission and deputy chief of the Taliban’s military commission under Mullah Yaqoob Mujahid, the Taliban’s current defense minister (see his profile by the Middle East Institute’s Taliban Leadership Tracker initiative).
Mawlawi Amanuddin Mansur, son of Shahid Al-Hajj Zamanuddin, joined the Taliban insurgency in 2013. He previously served as an imam in the Baharak district of Badakhshan (see the 3 January 2017 report by AAN). Mansur was the shadow governor of the Taliban for Badakhshan during their insurgency, according to his interview published by the Taliban on 27 February 2021.
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Mansur has held various positions within the Taliban’s administration. On 4 October 2021, Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada appointed Mansur as the deputy commander of the Military Corps based in Mazar (as reported by Taliban-controlled Bakhtarnews here). He was soon promoted to the position of the commander of the Air Force, which was announced by the Taliban’s MoD on 30 November 2021 (see the report here). After more than a year, on 6 October 2022, the Taliban’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, announced that, based on Hibatullah Akhundzada’s decree, Mansur had been appointed as the governor of Badakhshan province. This was a demotion for Mansur. Less than a year later, in mid-July 2023, he was appointed to yet another role: the commander of the Taliban’s 217 Omari Military Corps (as reported by RTA on 15 July 2023). This frequent reassignment might suggest a deliberate strategy by the Taliban to prevent Mansur from establishing a strong power base in his home province of Badakhshan.
How does this parallel the fate of the Uzbek commander?
Etilaat Roz’s column cited above drew parallels between what they called the marginalisation of Tajik commanders led by Fitrat and the fate of Uzbek Taliban led by Salahuddin Ayubi. Ayubi was one of the first Taliban commanders to enter the presidential palace during their takeover of Kabul on 15 August 2021. He subsequently served as commander of the Taliban’s 203 Mansuri Military Corps in Paktia province.
However, following tensions between the Taliban and their Uzbek members over the detention of an Uzbek commander, Makhdom Alem, in February 2022, Ayubi was demoted to the position of deputy minister of rural development in March of that year. He initially refused to accept that position (see BBC’s 22 October 2022 report). He was later appointed as the chief of police of Zabul but resigned from this position in September 2024.
However, while many may follow these reports of tension between the Taliban core and their non-Pashtun commanders with keen interest, the Taliban have also demonstrated a tendency in other instances not to push too hard, in order to avoid completely losing local support.1