Abdul Ghani Baradar | |
|---|---|
عبدالغنی برادر | |
 Baradar in 2020 | |
| First Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs of Afghanistan[1][2] | |
| Assumed office 7 September 2021 Serving with Abdul Salam Hanafi | |
| Supreme Leader | Hibatullah Akhundzada |
| Prime Minister | Hasan Akhund |
| Preceded by | Hasan Akhund (2001) |
| ThirdDeputy Leader of Afghanistan | |
| Assumed office 15 August 2021 | |
| Emir | Hibatullah Akhundzada |
| In exile 24 January 2019 – 15 August 2021 | |
| Supreme Leader | Hibatullah Akhundzada |
| Preceded by | New seat |
| Head of the Economic Commission | |
| Assumed office 2022[3] | |
| Supreme Leader | Hibatullah Akhundzada |
| Head of thePolitical Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | |
| In exile 24 January 2019 – 17 August 2021[4][5] | |
| Supreme Leader | Hibatullah Akhundzada |
| Preceded by | Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai |
| Succeeded by | Suhail Shaheen |
| FirstDeputy Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | |
| In exile May 2002[6] – 8 February 2010[7] | |
| Supreme Leader | Mullah Omar |
| Preceded by | Mohammad Rabbani |
| Succeeded by | Akhtar Mansour[8] |
| Deputy Minister of Defense of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | |
| In office 27 September 1996 – 15 April 1997 | |
| Prime Minister | Mohammad Rabbani |
| Supreme Leader | Mullah Omar |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1963-09-29)29 September 1963 (age 62) Yatimak,Uruzgan,Afghanistan |
| Occupation | Politician,Taliban member |
| Awards | 100 Most Influential People in 2021 byTime magazine |
| Political affiliation | Taliban |
| Website | Government website |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Afghanistan |
| Branch/service | Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001) |
| Rank | Corps Commander Deputy Chief of Staff Chief of Staff |
| Commands | Western Afghanistan Corps Central Corps, Kabul |
| Battles/wars | Soviet–Afghan War Afghan Civil War (1992-1996) War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) |
Abdul Ghani Baradar[a] (born 29 September 1963) is an Afghan politician and religious leader who is the firstdeputy prime minister, alongsideAbdul Salam Hanafi, of the Taliban led government ofAfghanistan. A co-founder of theTaliban along withMullah Omar, he was Omar's top deputy from 2002 to 2010, and since 2019 he has been the Taliban's fourth-in-command, as the third ofLeaderHibatullah Akhundzada's threedeputies.
He held senior positions in the Taliban during their first rule from 1996 to 2001. After theTaliban government fell to the US-led invasion in 2001, he rose to lead the organization'sQuetta Shura inPakistan, becoming thede facto leader of the Taliban. He was imprisoned by Pakistan in 2010, possibly because he had been discussing a peace deal with theAfghan government secretly, without the involvement of Pakistan. He was released in 2018 at the request of theUnited States and was subsequently appointed adeputy leader of the Taliban and head of theirpolitical office inQatar. Following theTaliban victory in August 2021, he returned to Afghanistan and received his current government post.
Baradar is considered to be a moderate Taliban member.[9][10] U.S. PresidentDonald Trump co-signed the February 2020Doha agreement with him that led to the fullwithdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan. After the agreement was signed, the Taliban launched amilitary offensive against the Afghan government on 15 August 2021, while the U.S. withdrawal was still underway. On 15 September 2021, Baradar was listed onTime magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People In 2021" for his role in the Taliban's victory.[11][12]
Reports of his date and place of birth vary. According to theUnited Nations Security Council Consolidated List, he was born in about 1968 in the Yatimak village ofDeh Rawood District inUruzgan Province of theKingdom of Afghanistan.[13][14] However, identity documents have stated his year of birth as 1963,[15] or his date and place of birth as 29 September 1963 in Uruzgan.[16]
He is aZirak[17]DurraniPashtun of the Sadozai tribe, a sub-tribe of thePopalzai.[18] According to Dutch journalistBette Dam, he andMuhammed Omar became friends when they were teenagers.[19] According toNewsweek, Omar and Baradar may be brothers-in-law via marriage to two sisters.[20]Muhammed Omar the first leader of the Taliban, nicknamed him 'Baradar', which means 'brother',[19] or Mullah Brother.[21]
He fought during the 1980s in theSoviet–Afghan War in Kandahar (mainly in the Panjwayi area), serving as Omar's deputy in a group ofAfghan mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.[19][22] Omar gave him the nom de guerre 'Baradar', which means 'brother',[19] because of their close friendship.[21] He later operated a madrassa inMaiwand, Kandahar Province, alongside Omar.[23][17]
In 1994, he was one of four men, including Omar, who founded the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.[24] During Taliban rule (1996–2001), Baradar held a variety of posts. He was reportedly governor ofHerat andNimruz provinces,[25][26] and/or the Corps Commander for western Afghanistan.[20] An unclassifiedU.S. State Department document lists him as the former Deputy Chief of Army Staff and Commander of Central Army Corps,Kabul,[27] while the United Nations Security Council Consolidated List states that he was the DeputyMinister of Defense.[14]
Following the11 September 2001 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban with the help of Afghan forces. Baradar fought against the U.S.-supportedNorthern Alliance and, according toNewsweek, "hopped on a motorcycle and drove his old friend [Omar] to safety in the mountains" in November 2001 as Taliban defenses were crumbling.[20] One story holds that a U.S.-linked Afghan force seized Baradar and other Taliban figures sometime that month, butPakistani intelligence secured their release.[28] Another story reported byBette Dam contends that Baradar rescuedHamid Karzai, his fellow Popalzai tribesman, from grave danger when the latter had entered Afghanistan to build anti-Taliban support.[29]
The newAfghan government was organized in accordance with the December 2001Bonn Agreement; Hamid Karzai served as interim leader and later President of Afghanistan. Baradar now found himself fightinginternational forces and the newly formed Afghan government. According to historian and counterinsurgency analystCarter Malkasian, Baradar's decision to pick up arms again after 2001 might have been largely rooted in the failures of Karzai to include the Taliban in the2002 loya jirga and to enforce an amnesty that would have allowed him and other Taliban members to live peacefully in a post-Taliban Afghanistan.[30] Many fellow Taliban commanders were killed over the years following the initial invasion, including Baradar's rivalDadullah, who was killed inHelmand Province in 2007. Baradar eventually rose to lead theQuetta Shura and became the de facto leader of the Taliban, directing the insurgency from Pakistan.[20] Western diplomats considered him to be among those in the Shura who were more open to contact with the Afghan government, and more resistant to influence from Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence.[31] Temperament-wise he has been described as acting as "an old-fashioned Pashtun tribal head" and a consensus builder.[20]
Despite his military activities, Baradar was reportedly behind several attempts to begin peace talks, specifically in 2004 and 2009,[20] and widely seen as a potentially key part of a negotiated peace deal.[32][33]
Baradar was arrested by Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in late January[34] or early February 2010[35] inKarachi.[36][37][38][39] Pakistan only confirmed the arrest a week later and Pakistani Interior MinisterRehman Malik denied reports that US agents had been involved in the arrest.[40] According toNew York Times reporting soon after the arrest, American intelligence agencies had tipped off Pakistani counter-terror officers about a meeting of militants with a possible link to Baradar, but that it was only after several men had been arrested that they realized one was Baradar himself.[34] According toNew York Times reporting months later, Pakistani officials were then claiming that they had been targeting Baradar himself, because he had been secretly discussing a peace deal with the Afghan government without the involvement of Pakistan, who had long supported the Taliban. They claimed that the ISI tracked Baradar's cell phone to an area of Karachi, called on the CIA to use a more sophisticated tracking device to find his precise location, and then the Pakistanis moved in to arrest him.The New York Times concluded that events and motives were still unclear.[41] The story was only lightly covered in the Pakistani press when it initially broke, except for the newspaperDawn, which published detailed information.[42]Abdul Qayyum Zakir became the Taliban military leader after Baradar's arrest.
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Although some analysts saw Baradar's arrest as a significant shift in Pakistan's position,[43] others claimed that Pakistan arrested Baradar to stop his negotiations with the Karzai government, so that Pakistan would get a seat at the table[citation needed] – because an agreement between the Taliban and the Karzai government could deprive Pakistan of influence in Afghanistan.[44] Another view contended that Pakistani GeneralAshfaq Parvez Kayani was using the series of Taliban arrests to help extend his own career beyond his slated November 2010 retirement date, the theory being that this would raise his standing among American policymakers and thus pressure the Pakistani government to retain him.[45] The Afghan government was reportedly holding secret talks with Baradar and his arrest was said to have infuriated PresidentHamid Karzai.[46]
Despite repeated claims that Pakistan would deliver Baradar to Afghanistan if formally asked to do so,[47] and that hisextradition was underway,[48] he was expressly excluded from a group of nine Taliban prisoners that Pakistan released in November 2012.[49][50] They eventually released him in mid-October 2018.[31][51][52][53] Washington special envoyZalmay Khalilzad said that he had asked Pakistan to release him, as Khalilzad believed Baradar could help in theAfghan peace process.[54]
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Baradar was appointed a deputy to thesupreme leader of the Taliban and the chief of theTaliban's political office in Doha, Qatar, in January 2019, about three months after Pakistan released him.[55][56] He was the most senior of three deputies to the leader, the other two beingSirajuddin Haqqani andMullah Yaqoob.[1][57] Although he served undersupreme leaderHibatullah Akhundzada, according toThe Economist, andThe Diplomat, Baradar was regarded as the Taliban'sde facto leader.[17][58] US Secretary of StateMike Pompeo called him "a very sophisticated player" in a meeting with the thenPresident of Afghanistan,Ashraf Ghani.[59]
In February 2020, Baradar signed theDoha Agreement on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban.[60]
On 17 August 2021, Baradar returned to Afghanistan for the first time since the fall of the first Taliban government in 2001.[61] It was rumored that he would become thepresident of Afghanistan following theoverthrow of the government ofAshraf Ghani by the Taliban in August 2021.[62][63] On 23 August 2021,CIA DirectorWilliam J. Burns held a secret meeting with Baradar in Kabul to discuss the 31 August deadline for a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.[64][65]
On 14 September 2021, it was reported that Baradar had not been seen in public for several days, and that there were rumors he had been injured or killed in infighting over power in the new Afghan government.[66] The following day a video interview with Baradar was released, in which he denied the rumors.[67] During the 2nd2024 United States presidential debates, former U.S. presidentDonald Trump mentioned Baradar's role in negotiations which led to the end of thewar.[68]
'a big success for our mutual efforts in the region,' spokesman Robert Gibbs said, breaking the White House's silence on the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The capture of Baradar and the Afghan Taliban governors is only the most recent and highly visible signal of the possible shift.
An agreement between the Taliban and the Karzai government could deprive Pakistan of influence in next-door Afghanistan.
'In accordance with the decree issued by the Leader of Islamic Emirate, the esteemed Mullah Abdul Ghani Beradar has been appointed as the deputy of the Leader in Political Affairs and the chief of the Political Office of the Islamic Emirate,' the Taliban statement said.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | FirstDeputy Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 2002–2010 withObaidullah Akhund (second deputy, 2002–2007) Akhtar Mansour (second deputy, 2007–2010) Served under:Mullah Omar | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Head of thePolitical Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 2019–2021 | Succeeded by |
| New seat | ThirdDeputy Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 2019–present withSirajuddin Haqqani (first deputy, 2016–present) Mullah Yaqoob (second deputy, 2016–present) Served under:Hibatullah Akhundzada | Incumbent |
| Third deputyhead of state ofAfghanistan 2021–present | ||
| Vacant Title last held by Hasan Akhund(2001) | ActingFirst Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan for Economic Affairs 2021–present withAbdul Salam Hanafi (acting, second) Abdul Kabir (acting, third) Served under:Hasan Akhund(acting PM) | |
