2 hours agoShareSaveBBC AfghanShareSaveAFP via Getty ImagesIt was a piece of audio obtained by the BBC that revealed what worries the Taliban’s leader most.Not an external danger, but one from within Afghanistan, which the Taliban seized control of as the previous government collapsed and the US withdrew in 2021.He warned of “insiders in the government” pitted against each other in the Islamic Emirate the Taliban set up to govern the country.In the leaked clip, the supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada can be heard giving a speech saying that internal disagreements could eventually bring them all down.”As a result of these divisions, the emirate will collapse and end,” he warned.AFP / Universal Images Group via GettyThe speech, made to Taliban members at a madrassa in the southern city of Kandahar in January 2025, was more fuel to the fire of rumours which had been circulating for months – rumours of differences at the very top of the Taliban.It is a split the Taliban leadership has always denied – including when asked directly by the BBC.But the rumours prompted the BBC’s Afghan service to begin a year-long investigation into the highly secretive group – conducting more than 100 interviews with current and former members of the Taliban, as well as local sources, experts and former diplomats.Because of the sensitivity over reporting this story, the BBC has agreed not to identify them for their safety.Now, for the first time, we have been able to map two distinct groups at the very top of the Taliban – each presenting competing visions for Afghanistan.One entirely loyal to Akhundzada, who, from his base in Kandahar, is driving the country towards his vision of a strict Islamic Emirate – isolated from the modern world, where religious figures loyal to him control every aspect of society.And a second, made up of powerful Taliban members largely based in the capital Kabul, advocating for an Afghanistan which – while still following a strict interpretation of Islam – engages with the outside, builds the country’s economy, and even allows girls and women access to an education they are currently denied beyond primary school.One insider described it as “the Kandahar house versus Kabul”.But the question was always whether the Kabul group, made up of Taliban cabinet ministers, powerful militants and influential religious scholars commanding the support of thousands of Taliban loyalists, would ever challenge the increasingly authoritarian Akhundzada in any meaningful way, as his speech suggested.After all, according to the Taliban, Akhundzada is the group’s absolute ruler – a man only accountable to Allah, and not someone to be challenged.Then came a decision which would see the delicate tug of war between the most powerful men in the country escalate into a clash of wills.In late September, Akhundzada ordered the internet and phones to be shut off, severing Afghanistan from the rest of the world.Three days later the internet was back, with no explanation of why.But what had happened behind the scenes was seismic, say insiders. The Kabul group had acted against Akhundzada’s order and switched the internet back on.”The Taliban, unlike every other Afghan party or faction, is remarkable for its coherence – there have been no splits, not even much dissent,” explains an expert on Afghanistan, who has been studying the Taliban since they were established.”Bound into the movement’s DNA is the principle of obedience to one’s superiors, and ultimately to the Amir [Akhundzada]. That’s what made the act of turning the internet back on, against his explicit orders, so unexpected, and so notable,” the expert said.As one Taliban insider put it: this was nothing short of a rebellion.A man of faithHibatullah Akhundzada did not begin his leadership like this.Indeed, sources say he was chosen as the Taliban’s supreme leader in 2016 in part because of his approach of building consensus.Lacking battlefield experience himself, he found a deputy in Sirajuddin Haqqani – the feared militant commander, then one of the US’s most wanted men with a $10m (£7.4m) bounty on his head.A second deputy was found in Yaqoob Mujahid, Taliban founder Mullah Omar’s son – young, but bringing with him his Taliban bloodline, and its potential to unify the movement.The arrangement continued throughout negotiations with Washington in Doha to end the 20-year war between Taliban fighters and US-led forces. The eventual agreement, in 2020, resulted in the sudden and dramatic recapturing of the country by the Taliban, and the chaotic withdrawal of US troops in August 2021.Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesTo the outside world, they were a united front.But both deputies would find themselves quietly demoted to ministers as soon as the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, with Akhundzada now a lone power centre, insiders told the BBC.Even Abdul Ghani Baradar – the powerful and influential co-founder of the Taliban who had led negotiations with the US – found himself in the role of deputy prime minister instead of prime minister as many had expected.Instead, Akhundzada – having shunned the capital where the government sits in favour of remaining in Kandahar, a base of power for the Taliban – began surrounding himself with trusted ideologues and hardliners.Other loyalists were given control of the country’s security forces, religious policies and parts of the economy.”[Akhundzada], from the outset, sought to form his own strong faction,” a former Taliban member – who later served in Afghanistan’s US-backed government – told the BBC.”Although he lacked the opportunity at first, once he gained power, he began doing so skilfully, expanding his circle using his authority and position.”Edicts began to be announced without consultation with Kabul-based Taliban ministers, and with little regard for public promises made before they took power, on issues like allowing girls access to education. The ban on education, along with women working, remains one of the “main sources of tension” between the two groups, a letter from a UN monitoring body to the Security Council noted in December.Meanwhile, another insider told the BBC that Akhundzada, who had started out as a judge in the Taliban’s Sharia courts of the 1990s, was becoming “even more rigid” in his religious beliefs.Akhundzada’s ideology was already such that he not only knew but approved of his son’s choice to become a suicide bomber, according to two Taliban officials after his death in 2017.And he is convinced that making the wrong decision could have implications beyond his lifetime, the BBC has been told.”Every decision he makes he says: I’m accountable to Allah, on judgement day, I will be questioned why I didn’t take an action,” one current Taliban government official explained.Two people who have been in meetings with Akhundzada described to the BBC how they were faced with a man who barely spoke, choosing to comm …
