Afghanistan: Taliban spokesman's office moved to Kandahar province

The Taliban authorities in Afghanistan announced that they had relocated the office of the group’s spokesperson. The office of the Taliban’s spokesman would now be in the Kandahar province of southern Afghanistan.

The Afghan information ministry said this week that Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid and deputy spokesman Innamullah Samangani’s offices would be moved to Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan. The ministry did not explain the reasons for relocation. This marks one of the first public announcements of a senior official in the Taliban administration shifting their office from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.

Kandahar is the historical birthplace of the Taliban movement and is currently where the group’s Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, is residing. Akhunzada rarely makes public visits to Kabul, where the national government and the offices of the acting prime minister are based. The move to relocate the spokespersons’ office is also seen as making more prominent the Taliban officials that are based in Kandahar.

Major policies of the insurgent group, such as the increasing restrictions against women and girls from further education and working in most NGOs, came from Akhunzada in Kandahar and were since implemented by officials in Kabul, according to ministers.

Mujahid has long been the spokesperson for the insurgent group, even before their takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 in the wake of the withdrawal of foreign military forces and the collapse of the Western-backed government.

Meanwhile, a summary report published by the United States government agencies on Thursday regarding the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan pinned the blame on the previous administration for the issues that led to the military withdrawal. While the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden defended the withdrawal, it acknowledged that Washington must better prepare for “high-risk scenarios” in the future.

“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” said the report, referring to the Trump administration’s negotiation with the Taliban on a withdrawal agreement that Biden upheld.

“During the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration, the outgoing administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies,” the report said.