Who is Taliban Leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, likely to be next Afghanistan President
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| Taliban Leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar - The Man Who May Become New Afghan President |
Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar may become the new President of Afghanistan as Ashraf Ghani has reportedly stepped down from the post.
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country amid the group’s rapid advance on the capital, Kabul. While reports say a delegation of Taliban and Afghanistan leaders will leave for Qatar for power transfer talks and who will take over as supreme head, speculations are there that Taliban's political bureau head Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is likely to be the President.
Who is Mullah Baradar: Biography and Personal Profile
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the incoming 'president' was the head of the Taliban's government in exile, based in Doha and he has reportedly left Qatar for Afghanistan.
The leader's public profile has been largely limited to the release of annual messages during Islamic holidays.
Taliban’s Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is likely to be declared as the Afghanistan’s new President, sources told CNN.
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.
Abdul Ghani Baradar Early Life
Baradar was born in the Afghani province of Uruzgan in 1968, and was raised in Kandahar — the birthplace of the Taliban movement.
Baradar's childhood was forever altered by the Soviet invasion of the country in the late 1970s, transforming him into an insurgent.
Video - Taliban enters presidential palace in Kabul:
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| Taliban Leader Baradar |
Abdul Ghani Baradar Career - Taliban movement
He was believed to have fought side-by-side with the one-eyed cleric, Mullah Omar, the Afghan mujahid commander who later led the insurgent group when it founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996.
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.
With the US invasion and 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. Baradar went into hiding, and was said to have remained active in the Taliban’s leadership in exile.
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.
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| Taliban Leader Baradar |
In February 2020, Baradar was present during the signing of the Doha Agreement, under which the US would draw its forces down; in return, the Taliban promised not to let extremists use the country as a staging ground for attacking the US or its allies.
The insurgents waited until most US troops had left Afghanistan before embarking on an offensive to take over the country.
In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the US and NATO over nearly 20 years to build up Afghan security forces.
The Taliban swept into Afghanistan’s capital Sunday, after the government collapsed and the embattled president had joined an exodus of his fellow citizens and foreigners.
Baradar is now the de facto president of the newly declared Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
| Afghanistan Situation As Taliban advances in Kabul, Afghan media quoted acting defence minister Bismillah Mohammadi as saying that President Ghani — who flee the country — handed the authority of solving the "crisis" in the country to political leaders. Mohammadi said that a delegation will travel to Doha on Monday for talks on the country's situation.
Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of Afghanistan's High Council for National Reconciliation, appeared to criticise Ghani for leaving the country and said "God will hold him accountable and the nation will also judge." |
Video - Taliban race to complete Afghanistan takeover:
 Where Afghanistan President Ghani Had Gone? Taliban fighters entered Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan. Where President Ghani had gone? |
