Taliban rule shows increasing ethnic centralization: Leadership remains overwhelmingly Pashtun (≈90%), with key positions and military commands disproportionately favoring Pashtuns despite Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic population.

Marginalization of non-Pashtun commanders: Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara figures have been sidelined, arrested, disarmed, or killed (e.g., Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahid), particularly in northern and minority areas, as the regime consolidates power around Kandahar.

Fiscal and security decisions reinforce exclusion: Budget cuts and mining disputes disproportionately affect non-Pashtun networks, risking long-term instability, reduced local support, and potential recruitment into opposition or extremist groups.

Removal of Haji Jumma Khan Fateh as deputy-governor of Zabul should not be considered as a mug up. The influential commandership of Fateh, who had long established a network in Badakhshan, had already been moved southward, as the conflicts over local control and sum of gold revenues escalated. In the sections of reports on Fateh’s counter-skirmishing in the region it shows that the Pashtun commander is side-lined when the Taliban require a territorial expansion, but can be sacrificed when they pose a threat to the Kandahar-based hierarchy through their military or economic power. 

The current leadership mapping doesn’t allow for dismissing the imbalance. The Middle East Institute’s Taliban Leadership Tracker, which was updated in May 2026, identifies 90 per cent Pashtun, 5.2 per cent Tajik and around 3 per cent Uzbek at the top and middle levels of the Taliban. It also concludes that only some 30 (or so) mapped figures are non-Taliban appointees, and that some 80 per cent are military. While there is no consistent modern ethnic census of Afghanistan, estimates of the number of Pashtuns in the country are around 40-45 per cent of the population. But in the face of uncertainty, the disparity between the........

© Eurasia Review