Propaganda for Power, Not for the People: Behind the Taliban Ceremony at the Palace.
On Sunday, (25 January 2026), the Taliban held a staged ceremony at the Royal Palace to honor their propaganda network tasked with whitewashing, sanitizing the group’s actions, and justifying repression in the media and on social platforms.
Key Taliban figures, including Mullah Abdul Wasi, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Mullah Tajmir Jawad, Deputy Intelligence Chief, and Amir Khan Muttaqi, the group’s Foreign Minister, attended the event.
Their presence indicates that the propaganda apparatus is directly managed by the Taliban’s central power core.
However, informed sources stress that the ceremony was not a media event, but a clear example of ethnic purification within the Taliban structure.
According to one source, all attendees and honorees were Pashtun Taliban members, and the Prime Minister’s Office deliberately avoided inviting non-Pashtun Taliban figures.
This once again proves that power monopolization within the Taliban is not limited to military and political positions, but also extends to propaganda and narrative-making.
This comes despite the fact that a large portion of Taliban propaganda content producers in the Persian language are non-Pashtun Taliban members.
These individuals have served the group’s propaganda machine for years, yet due to the closed and ethnocentric power structure, they are denied even symbolic participation in such events.
Observers say this approach reveals a reality the Taliban have long sought to conceal: a system of governance based on ethnic monopoly, systematic exclusion, and the instrumental use of religion and media to consolidate power.
