Taliban’s Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is likely to be declared as the Afghanistan’s new President, sources told CNN-News18. Baradar is one of the co-founders of the Taliban, who now heads the political office of the insurgent group and is part of the negotiating team that the group has in Doha. Baradar, reported to have been one of the trusted commanders of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, was captured in 2010 by security forces in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi and released in 2018. As he looks set to take over power in Afghanistan, News18 takes a look at the Taliban leader’s rise and role:
The origin
Baradar was raised in Kandahar — the birthplace of the Taliban movement. Like most Afghans, Baradar’s life was forever altered by the Soviet invasion of the country in the late 1970s, transforming him into an insurgent. He was believed to have fought side-by-side with the one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar. The two would go on to found the Taliban movement in the early 1990s amid the chaos and corruption of the civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal.
Following the Taliban’s collapse in 2001, Baradar is believed to have been among a small group of insurgents who approached interim leader Hamid Karzai with a letter outlining a potential deal that would have seen the militants recognise the new administration.
Arrested in Pakistan in 2010, Baradar was kept in custody until pressure from the United States saw him freed in 2018 and relocated to Qatar. This is where he was appointed head of the Taliban’s political office and oversaw the signing of the withdrawal agreement with the Americans.
Baradar was one of 33 people present at a 1994 meeting to form the Afghan Tehreek-e-Taliban. In addition to being the governor of Herat Province and the head of the Taliban army, he also wrote a code of conduct for Taliban fighters in the form of a booklet. However, he was mostly known as a warlord commander. He is said to be from the southern Afghan district of Uruzgan but has lived for many years in the Afghan province of Kandahar, known as the Taliban’s stronghold.
International recognition
In March 2020, in the first-ever known call between an American president and the militant group, former President Donal Trump spoke to Baradar and discussed progress towards achieving peace in Afghanistan. During the call on Tuesday, Trump “emphasised the need to continue the reduction in violence, which made possible the signing of the historic United States-Taliban agreement on February 29,” the White House said in a readout of the telephonic conversation.
However, the biggest “support” for Taliban comes from Pakistan, which has often labelled them as fighters and not terrorists. According to a New York Times analysis published in 1996, Pakistan through Taliban wanted to have greater depth in Central Asia and provided Taliban with all that it needed – ammunition, food and fuel. Spin Boldak skirmish of 1994 was a turning point for Taliban. Spin Boldak is a border town on Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the Kandahar province. Taliban got 800 truckloads of Soviet arms and ammunition hidden in caves. Already possessing Pakistan’s arms, ammunition and money, this huge addition proved more than enough to equip Taliban to soon rapidly advance across the whole country.
Pakistan, in fact, throughout its emergence and rule in Afghanistan, helped Taliban with political, military and financial support, even after UN put sanctions on the Taliban for supporting Al-Qaeda.
Pakistan’s all-weather friend China, too, is not far behind. In July this year, China hosted a rare nine-member Taliban delegation amid its recent ascendancy in Afghanistan, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi describing the group as “a pivotal military and political force” in the country. The delegation, led by Baradar, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other officials in Tianjin, a port city around 100 km southeast of Beijing.
Reports had said China was prepared to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan if the terrorist group manages to overpower the democratically elected government in Kabul. New Chinese military and intelligence assessments of the current situation in Afghanistan have prompted them to prepare to formalize their ties with the terrorist group, according to the American publication citing intelligence sources familiar with the Chinese assessments.
What about the other names in Taliban hierarchy?
Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Supreme Leader, was appointed leader of the Taliban in a swift power transition after a US drone strike killed his predecessor, Mullah Mansour Akhtar, in 2016. He is widely believed to have been selected to serve more as a spiritual figurehead than a military commander.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, Haqqani Network: The son of the famed commander from the anti-Soviet jihad, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Sirajuddin doubles as both the deputy leader of the Taliban movement while also heading the powerful Haqqani network. The Haqqani Network is a US-designated terror group that has long been viewed as one of the most dangerous factions fighting Afghan and US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan during the past two decades.
Mullah Yaqoob, the Scion: The son of the Taliban’s founder Mullah Omar. Mullah Yaqoob heads the group’s powerful military commission, which oversees a vast network of field commanders charged with executing the insurgency’s strategic operations in the war. His lineage and ties to his father — who enjoyed a cult-like status as the Taliban’s leader — serves as a potent symbol and makes him a unifying figure over a sprawling movement.
Current situation
The Taliban were in control of Afghanistan on Monday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and conceded the insurgents had won the 20-year war. The astonishingly quick collapse of the government, with militants taking over the presidential palace on Sunday night, triggered fear and panic in the capital.
Thousands of people were on Monday trying to escape Kabul and the feared hardline brand of Islamic rule of the Taliban, with scenes of chaos as crowds gathered at the airport. Ghani fled on Sunday as the insurgents encircled Kabul, with the Taliban sealing a nationwide military victory that saw all cities fall to them in just 10 days.
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