Taliban rule of Afghanistan becomes madder by the day. The only thing they reliably do is find new ways of making life impossible for women. They recently jailed the senior government advisor, Dr Farouq Azam, for more than a month after he made the subversive suggestion that women medical professionals should be sent to assist with earthquake relief. But while the Taliban attempt to portray a united front against the outside world, there is mounting evidence of division at the top of the movement.

Taliban rule of Afghanistan becomes madder by the day. The only thing they reliably do is find new ways of making life impossible for women

Interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani has weirdly become the unlikely champion of what passes for ‘reform,’ if such a word can be used for a man who leads the fundamentalist Haqqani faction in the Taliban, and once had a multi-million dollar bounty on his head for terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Afghan citizens.

Haqqani publicly split with the Supreme leader Hibatullah Akhunzada last year, and left the country for several months after a senior member of his family was killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul. He was persuaded to return to government, but has found his authority and that of other ‘reformist’ figures in formal government posts constantly undermined by the supreme leader. Akhunzada has attempted to circumvent the formal system of government based in Kabul by ruling through Islamic orders issued by the Chief Justice in Kandahar, spread through mosques and madrasas.

The Kabul........

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