Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has returned to Afghanistan after almost 20 years as the insurgents became the undisputed winners in the two-decade-long battle with the US and NATO forces. The top Taliban leader arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday night from Qatar.
According to reports, Baradar, the most public face of the Taliban and ousted from Afghanistan in 2001, is likely to become the new president of the war-ravaged country. Though Haibatullah Akhundzada is the overall leader of the outfit, Abdul Ghani Baradar has remained the face of the Taliban and his return to the country with the fall of Kabul indicates mobilisation to form the new government.
Baradar 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.
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 men reportedly became brothers-in-law after Baradar married Mullah Omar's sister.
Later, the duo founded the Taliban movement in the early 1990s amid the unrest following the Soviet withdrawal in 1992. He was the deputy minister of defence during the last regime of the Taliban
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.