in expenses. In August of that year 5000 students aged between 15 and 35 left madrassas in Pakistan to join the Taliban. Leadership and organization Kandahar faction and Haqqani network According to Jon Lee Anderson the Taliban government is "said to be profoundly divided" between the Kandahar faction and the Haqqani network, with a mysterious dispearance of deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar for "several days" in mid-September 2021 explained by rumours of injury after a brawl with other Taliban. The Kandahar faction is named for the city that Mullah Mohammed Omar came from and where he founded the Taliban, and is described as "insular" and "rural", interested "primarily" with "ruling its home turf". It includes Haibatullah Akhundzada, Mullah Yaqoob, Abdul Ghani Baradar (see below). The family-based Haqqani network, by contrast are "closely linked to Pakistan's secret services", "interested in global jihad", with its founder (Jalaluddin Haqqani) "connected" the Taliban with Osama bin Laden. It is named for its founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and is currently led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, and includes Khalil Haqqani, Mawlawi Mohammad Salim Saad. With Sirajuddin Haqqani as acting interior minister, as of February 2022, the network has control of "a preponderance of security positions in Afghanistan". Taliban leadership have denied tension between factions. Suhail Shaheen states “there is one Taliban", and Zabihullah Mujahid (acting Deputy Minister of Information and Culture), evenmaintains “there is no Haqqani network.” Current leadership The top members of the Taliban as an insurgency, as of August 2021, are: Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban's Supreme Leader since 2016, a religious scholar from Kandahar province. Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the movement alongside Mohammed Omar, was deputy Prime Minister as of March 2022. From Uruzgan province, he was imprisoned in Pakistan before his release at the request of the United States. Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban's founder Mohammed Omar and leader of the group's military operations. Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani network is acting interior minister as of February 2022, with authority over police and intelligence services. He oversees the group's financial and military assets between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The U.S. government has a $10 million bounty for his arrest brought on by several terrorist attacks on hotels and the Indian Embassy. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, former head of the group's political office in Doha. From Logar province, he holds a university master's degree and trained as a cadet at the Indian