Sept 21 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers announced several senior appointments on Tuesday, naming two veteran battlefield commanders from the movement’s southern heartlands as deputies in important ministries. Main Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir will be deputy defence minister, while Sadr Ibrahim was named deputy minister for the interior. The two were identified in U.N. reports as being among battlefield commanders loyal to the former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour who were pressing the leadership to step up the war against the Western-backed government. Zakir, a former detainee in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, was a close associate of late Taliban founder Mullah Omar. Sadr, a former head of the Taliban military commission from the southern province of Helmand, will be deputy to Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose family comes from the eastern borderlands with Pakistan.
