Ethnic Power Base or Public Service Agency? Eighty Percent of Kabul Traffic Staff Are from Maidan Wardak

Findings by the Hasht-e Subh Daily reveal that the Traffic Department under Taliban control has become a space defined by ethnic monopolization, dominated by Maidan Wardak and Kandahar provinces. According to these findings, nearly 80 percent of the department’s directors, heads, and key staff come from Maidan Wardak Province, while Wardaki and Kandahari Pashtuns hold all managerial and supervisory positions. The report shows that out of 21 directorates and supervisory offices within the General Directorate of Traffic, 18 are fully staffed by individuals from Maidan Wardak Province. Employees from the previous government, especially Tajiks and Hazaras, have either been pushed out of their roles or demoted to lower positions, where they face discriminatory treatment. Sources say that Mullah Bashir, the Taliban head of traffic for Kabul, lacks both administrative and professional competence, and that his ethnic-driven conduct has sharply limited job opportunities to one ethnic group and two provinces.

Sources say the Taliban Ministry of Interior formed a committee to remove former employees and replace them with mullahs affiliated with the group, and that dozens of people have already been demoted or dismissed. According to these sources, Sayed al-Rahim Jahed, the General Director of Traffic at the Taliban Ministry of Interior, created the committee in coordination with the ministry’s senior deputy.

Sources add that Hikmatullah Samir, Director of Procurement at the General Directorate of Traffic, chairs the committee. Its members include Mawlawi Shams al-Rahman, Director of the Office of the Senior Deputy for Security Affairs; Qari Nasim, Director of Identification at the Traffic Directorate; Mufti Ayman al-Din, Director of the Office of the Kabul Traffic Directorate, and Zubaidullah, Secretary of the Professional Deputy at the General Directorate of Traffic. According to the sources, all members of this committee are Pashtuns from Maidan Wardak Province, and no one from other ethnic groups or language communities has a place in its structure.

Sources say the committee’s decisions have sidelined much of the department’s experienced workforce. As a result of these appointments and changes, about 80 percent of seasoned staff at the General Directorate of Traffic have been sent home or pushed into lower positions. They now perform only limited administrative tasks assigned by Taliban mullahs.

These sources also say that all managerial and supervisory posts, including the ranks of dagrawali, dagarmani, and samonyari, have gone exclusively to individuals from Kandahar and Maidan Wardak provinces. According to them, around 80 percent of those working in directorates and supervisory offices come from Maidan Wardak, and the appointment process, favoring these two provinces, continues aggressively.

Sources say Mullah Bashir, the head of Kabul traffic, lacks the capacity to manage administrative and professional affairs and routinely engages in ethnic discrimination within the department. According to the sources, he treats Persian speakers with clear bias, and every appointment he has made comes from Kandahar or Maidan Wardak.

Sources further say that Mullah Bashir, also known as “Mullah Nasruddin,” previously served as the Taliban traffic director in Kandahar Province and is widely viewed as incompetent, biased, and ethnocentric. According to these sources, he has selected most heads of Kabul’s monitoring zones from Kandahar, while the remaining appointees come from Maidan Wardak.

Sources add that out of the 21 directorates and supervisory offices within the General Directorate of Traffic, 18, including positions at the levels of dagrawali, dagarmani, and samonyari, as well as both the former and current heads, are all from Maidan Wardak Province. According to the sources, branch directors and supervisors have also filled most positions in their units with people from Maidan Wardak. Given these patterns, the sources say there is no sign of a spirit of “patriotism and equal opportunity for individuals other than Pashtuns, especially non-Wardakis.”

Sources also stress that these appointments are not based on higher education, work experience, or professional ability. Instead, they say, “it is enough for a person to be from Maidan Wardak Province, speak Pashto, and be a mullah or a Taliban member.”

These sources add that the latest appointments include no individuals from Tajik, Uzbek, or Hazara communities. According to them, the only requirements are being a Talib and fluency in Pashto. They say the Taliban General Directorate of Traffic and the Kabul Traffic Directorate, under the group’s control, which together employ nearly two thousand military and civilian personnel, have placed all leadership, managerial, supervisory, and executive roles in the hands of residents of Maidan Wardak and then Kandahar. As a result, the department now operates under the effective monopoly of one ethnic group and two provinces.

Sources say only a small number of employees from the republic period remain in the Traffic Department under Taliban control. Most of them are Pashto speakers from Maidan Wardak Province who continue to work with the same privileges they held before. According to the sources, the Taliban do not distinguish between these individuals and themselves, while the remaining Tajik and Hazara employees from the previous government endure abusive and humiliating treatment.

List of key positions in the Traffic Directorate, all held by individuals from a single province

Sources say that individuals from Maidan Wardak Province now make up 80 percent of the departments within the Kabul Traffic Directorate. They describe a department under Taliban control that has turned into a factory for ethnicization rooted in a single province. According to these sources, most of these individuals remain confined to administrative offices and never appear on the roads. Even the commanders and personnel stationed on the streets, they say, are largely Wardaki.

Another informed source explains that the Taliban General Director of Traffic also comes from Maidan Wardak Province, and that 80 percent of the staff were chosen from his own district, Sayedabad. The source adds that Hasib Mukhtar, the former Taliban head, filled the directorate with people tied to his own ethnic group and district, leaving little space for others.

Taliban continue to place their mullahs and fighters in professional and technical positions within the General Directorate of Traffic. At the same time, international organizations warn that traffic accidents have risen fivefold under the group’s rule. The human cost of this trend became painfully clear after a deadly crash on the Herat to Islam Qala route on Tuesday evening, when dozens of people returning from Iran to Afghanistan lost their lives. In early figures, the Taliban said that local sources quoted the Taliban security command in Guzara District of Herat as reporting that 53 people were killed in the incident.

Earlier, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, described traffic accidents as a preventable crisis and one of the leading causes of death in Afghanistan. The organization emphasized that improved road design, enhanced pedestrian protection, and reduced traffic speeds could contribute to creating safer cities for everyone.

Last year, the Emergency Hospital in Kabul echoed these concerns, announcing that traffic incidents had increased fivefold since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. In a report released on Saturday, December 20, 2025, the hospital said data recorded between March 2022 and March 2024 showed a rise of 78.5 percent in traffic-related incidents.

Reports indicate that most accidents occur along the Kabul to Herat highway, the Kabul to Jalalabad road, and the country’s northern highway. Common causes include high-speed collisions, vehicles drifting off the road, cars overturning into rivers, crashes into walls, and vehicles plunging into ravines.

You can read the Persian version of this report here:

پاتوق قومی یا اداره خدماتی؛ ۸۰درصد کارمندان ترافیک طالبان در کابل از میدان وردک هستند