https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/taliban-afghanistan-baradar-haqqani-fight/

Internally, cracks are beginning to show in Taliban leadership.

On Tuesday, the BBC’s Pashto language service reported a fierce disagreement between two senior Taliban leaders over the makeup of the new government and who should get credit for the group’s rapid victory. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taliban co-founder and interim deputy prime minister, is reported to have clashed with Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani, the interim refugee minister and a key figure in the militant Haqqani network, a splinter group considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

The argument is an old one between victors: Baradar championed his team’s diplomacy in securing success, while Haqqani stood for the group’s tactical acumen on the battlefield. The fight is reported to have become physical, as competing entourages came to blows. Baradar is said to have fled to Kandahar where a Taliban spokesman said he was meeting with the group’s supreme leader, and later, that he was getting some rest.

The episode, and his lack of public appearances, led to social media speculation that Baradar had died. (Taliban denials have been harder to accept ever since the group took two years to confirm the death of its leader, Mullah Omar.)