RASC News Agency: Guards of Abdulatif Nazari, the deputy minister of religious affairs in the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy, clashed with members of this group in the Qargha area of Kabul city. An international media outlet reported on Saturday, Apr 6, citing a local source, that the guards of the deputy minister of the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy engaged in a confrontation with Taliban members at the Qargha checkpoint in western Kabul yesterday at 4 p.m. after lunch, threatening each other and hurling “ethnic slurs.”
The source added that Taliban members stopped Nazari’s convoy at the checkpoint, leading to the altercation, during which the Taliban group sought assistance from their Pashtun Taliban counterparts in Paghman district. The physical confrontation and verbal tension continued for several hours. The source present at the scene said that the discussion escalated into a Hazara-Pashtun ethnic dispute among them, with numerous “ethnic insults” exchanged.
Abdulatif Nazari is the only Hazara official appointed by the Taliban group as the deputy minister of religious affairs in the Ministry of Economy, apparently to mislead public opinion and international organizations into believing that their governance includes non-Pashtun ethnicities as well.
Previously, Pashtun and Hazara Taliban factions, led by Mawlawi Mahdi, clashed for days in Sarpol province, resulting in Mahdi, the commander, being apprehended and killed by the group on the border between Iran and Afghanistan.
Policymakers believe that the Taliban group inherently opposes the inclusion of non-Pashtun ethnicities in their governance due to a lack of trust and their desire to maintain Pashtun dominance.
