The Taliban drew from its inner high echelons to fill top posts in Afghanistan's new government Tuesday, including an associate of the Islamist militant group's founder as premier and a wanted man on a U.S. terrorism list as interior minister.
World powers have told the Taliban the key to peace and development is an inclusive government that would back up its pledges of a more conciliatory approach upholding human rights, after a previous 1996-2001 period in power marked by bloody vendettas and oppression of women.
Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, in his first public statement since the Aug. 15 seizure of the capital Kabul by the insurgents, said the Taliban were committed to all international laws, treaties and commitments not in conflict with Islamic law.