advantage for appointing Mohammadi as the Minister of Interior is the hope of mending the rifts within the Afghan National Army that opened or widened as a result of the U.S. government's plan to begin withdrawing forces in July 2011. Expecting the eruption of a civil war after the American withdrawal, officers have been gravitating towards ethnic groupings and powerful generals, with Mohammadi and the Pashtu Defense Minister Wardak at the head of the two largest cliques. The departure of Mohammadi from the Ministry of Defense leaves no one who can rival Wardak in stature, which could mean a weakening of centrifugal forces. One of Mohammadi's strategies is to push greater authority down to local police commanders. When Mohammadi was the Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army, he enforced the decentralization process within an institution heavily influenced by senior officers who had been trained in the centralized model. As the Minister of the Interior, Mohammadi stressed the need to curb the corruption that has corroded the government and the people's trust in it. Mohammadi has already begun taking some of the actions essential to the reduction of corruption. He is, for example, keeping tabs on the movements of Ministry of Interior officials, and has fired several police chiefs for corruption. Minister of Defense Despite the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, Mohammadi still claimed the title of Minister of Defense and was able to publicly call for the arrest former President Ashraf Ghani, who he accused of "selling away our motherland," on 18 August 2021. Awards Bismillah Khan Mohammadi received the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani, Ghazi Amanullah Khan and Ahmad Shah Baba awards for his efforts in bolstering the Afghan National Army. References External links Interview: General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, Chief of General Staff, Afghan National Army Afghanistan's New Minister of Interior: A Potential Game Changer Afghan military officers Living people Interior ministers of Afghanistan Defence ministers of Afghanistan Afghan Tajik people Jamiat-e Islami politicians 1961 births People from Panjshir Province