Afghan PM-designate from Mujahideen stock; $5-mn US reward for new Interior Minister

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 7

Like most Taliban Rehbar Shura members, PM-designate Mullah Hassan Akhund is well known in security and intelligence circles as he is a UN-designated terrorist but details of his life are flimsy.

A Haji, he was important enough to be the Foreign Minister in the first Taliban government. But he was later replaced by Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil and named Political Adviser to the late Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Though almost all members of top echelon of the Afghan Cabinet are listed UN terrorists, proposed Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, also has a $5 million bounty by the US which wants to question him for the January 2008 attack Serena Hotel attack in Kabul that killed six, including an American, as well as several cross-border attacks against the US and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Believed to be between 66 and 69 years of age, Hassan Akhund is from Panjwai Province in Kandahar, the base of the dominant faction of the Kandhari mullahs in the Taliban.

Hassan Akhund won his spurs as a fighter with the Maulvi Khaalis group, one of the seven factions of Jihad funded and trained by CIA, ISI and the Saudi intelligence, to fight the Soviets.

A graduate from a madrasa in Quetta, Pakistan, he has remained close to Mullah Omar and was named to the Taliban Rehbar Shura (Supreme Council) in 2009.