Close aides to Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani have replaced 15 experienced instructors who were dismissed from Afghanistan’s National Police Academy last week, two sources inside the academy told Amu TV.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some of the dismissed instructors had more than 30 years of military and teaching experience.
They said the instructors were dismissed without being given an explanation or an opportunity to question the decision.
According to the sources, academy staff had been told that if their names were removed from attendance records, they should leave the institution without asking why.
The sources said most of the dismissed instructors were members of a particular ethnic group and held the rank of colonel. They did not provide further details about the instructors’ identities.
The two sources said people close to Haqqani were appointed to replace the instructors and that the new appointees had previously served in Taliban ranks.
Amu TV sought comment from the Taliban Interior Ministry about the dismissals and appointments but received no response.
Haroon Majidi, a journalist, told Amu TV that the Taliban were removing Afghanistan’s professional personnel to replace them with people affiliated with the group.
“The Taliban, by sidelining and removing Afghanistan’s professional cadres, are seeking to replace them with people affiliated with themselves,” Majidi said. “In doing so, they want to impose their own one-sided and coercive narrative.”
The reported changes come days after Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada called for an end to ethnic favoritism and appointments based on personal relationships within Taliban institutions, saying merit should be the sole criterion for appointments.
Bashir Ahmad Tayanj, a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament and a political analyst, told Amu TV that removing experienced instructors from educational institutions would undermine those institutions.
“Removing instructors from educational institutions is a grave injustice to those institutions,” Tayanj said. “These instructors have accumulated specialized, academic and other experience over many years. Replacing them with a few mullahs is, in fact, a blow to those institutions.”
Afghanistan’s National Police Academy has operated for decades as one of the country’s main institutions for training police officers.
In 2019, the academy was named after Gen. Abdul Raziq Achakzai, the former Kandahar police chief who was killed in an attack in 2018.
Taliban authorities changed the academy’s name after returning to power in August 2021. The institution remains under the Taliban Interior Ministry.
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