Exclusive: Five senior Taliban officials detained over corruption
At least five senior Taliban officials from the public health ministry, including a close aide to their minister, have been arrested by Taliban intelligence over corruption, three sources familiar with the matter said.
Those detained include Noorullah Darwish, Taliban’s head of documents and communications at the ministry, along with four other officials working in or around the Taliban minister’s office. The additional detainees include the minister’s chief of staff, a senior office administrator, a secretary and a petitions manager, the sources said.
The arrests were carried out by a Taliban intelligence unit known as Directorate 08, which has taken on responsibilities similar to the former government’s major crimes division. After about a week in custody, the detainees were transferred to Directorate 40, another intelligence branch that has been associated with interrogations and detention cases, the sources said.
The Taliban officials are accused of accepting bribes in exchange for issuing licenses to pharmacies and wholesale medicine distributors, the sources said. According to their accounts, investigators allege that payments of about $5,000 were taken for pharmacy permits and $3,500 for wholesale licenses.
The detainees are considered close to Noor Jalal Jalali, the Taliban’s health minister. According to the sources, Jalali initially attempted to block the arrests, delaying them for about a week. They said that Mawlawi Imad, head of the Taliban’s Directorate 08, later warned that interference could lead to action against the minister himself.
Internal rifts
The episode appears to reflect deeper internal divisions within the Taliban, the sources said, particularly between factions aligned with the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and those linked to the Haqqani network.
Jalali is widely seen as close to the Haqqani faction, which holds influence over the Interior Ministry. Taliban intelligence structures, by contrast, are generally viewed as aligned with Akhundzada’s inner circle. Rivalries between these factions have occasionally surfaced in appointments and administrative disputes but rarely in cases involving detentions of senior Taliban officials.
Jalali, born in 1969 in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan, has held senior roles within the Taliban for decades. During the group’s first period in power in the 1990s, he served as a deputy interior minister and a provincial governor. After 2001, he remained active in Taliban ranks and was detained by US forces from 2003 to 2008. He later joined the Taliban’s political office in Qatar and became a deputy interior minister after 2021 before being appointed their health minister in 2024.
A fragile, aid-dependent system
This comes at a sensitive moment for Afghanistan’s health sector, which remains heavily dependent on international funding and operational support.
According to data from Humanitarian Action website, a portal that provides information on aid provided to Afghanistan, from 2021 through early 2026, the sector received roughly $794 million in humanitarian assistance — less than half of the estimated $1.7 billion needed to sustain services. In parallel, the World Bank committed more than $800 million to maintain essential health programs through its emergency response initiatives.
International agencies, including the World Health Organization and UNICEF, continue to play a central role in supporting clinics, vaccination campaigns and basic services across the country.
Despite that support, access to health care remains uneven, particularly in rural areas. Restrictions on women’s education — especially in medical training — have compounded long-term shortages of female health workers, a critical gap in a system where cultural norms often require women to be treated by women.
Analysts say the arrests could carry broader implications for international engagement.
Allegations of corruption, combined with internal power struggles, risk undermining donor confidence in a sector already constrained by political and legal uncertainties. Aid organizations have long emphasized transparency and accountability as conditions for sustained support.
Analysts say the detentions also highlight the Taliban’s challenges in balancing internal cohesion with governance, particularly in ministries that depend heavily on external funding.
The Taliban’s ministry of public health has not responded to Amu’s queries about the matter.