Abdul Ghani Baradar

Abdul Ghani Baradar (born 29 September 1963 or c. 1968; known by the honorific mullah) is an Afghan political and religious leader who is the acting first deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Salam Hanafi, of Afghanistan.

However, identity documents have stated his year of birth as 1963, or his date and place of birth as 29 September 1963 in Uruzgan.

He is a Zirak Durrani Pashtun of the Sadozai tribe, a sub-tribe of the Popalzai.

According to Dutch journalist Bette Dam, he and Muhammed Omar became friends when they were teenagers.

According to Newsweek, Omar and Baradar may be brothers-in-law via marriage to two sisters.

Muhammed Omar the first leader of the Taliban, nicknamed him 'Baradar', which means 'brother', or Mullah Brother.

According to the United Nations Security Council Consolidated List, he was born in about 1968 in the Yatimak village of Deh Rawood District in Uruzgan Province of the Kingdom of Afghanistan.

He fought during the 1980s in the Soviet–Afghan War in Kandahar (mainly in the Panjwayi area), serving as Omar's deputy in a group of Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.

Omar gave him the nom de guerre 'Baradar', which means 'brother', because of their close friendship.

He later operated a madrassa in Maiwand, Kandahar Province, alongside Omar.

In 1994, he was one of four men, including Omar, who founded the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

He held senior positions in the Taliban during their first rule from 1996 to 2001.

During Taliban rule (1996–2001), Baradar held a variety of posts.

He was reportedly governor of Herat and Nimruz provinces, and/or the Corps Commander for western Afghanistan.

An unclassified U.S. State Department document lists him as the former Deputy Chief of Army Staff and Commander of Central Army Corps, Kabul, while the United Nations Security Council Consolidated List states that he was the Deputy Minister of Defense.

After the Taliban government fell to the US-led invasion in 2001, he rose to lead the organization's Quetta Shura in Pakistan, becoming the de facto leader of the Taliban.

Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban with the help of Afghan forces.

Baradar fought against the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance and, according to Newsweek, "hopped on a motorcycle and drove his old friend [Omar] to safety in the mountains" in November 2001 as Taliban defenses were crumbling.

One story holds that a U.S.-linked Afghan force seized Baradar and other Taliban figures sometime that month, but Pakistani intelligence secured their release.

Another story reported by Bette Dam contends that Baradar rescued Hamid Karzai, his fellow Popalzai tribesman, from grave danger when the latter had entered Afghanistan to build anti-Taliban support.

The new Afghan government was organized in accordance with the December 2001 Bonn Agreement; Hamid Karzai served as interim leader and later President of Afghanistan.

Baradar now found himself fighting international forces and the newly formed Afghan government.

According to historian and counterinsurgency analyst Carter 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 the 2002 loya jirga and to enforce an amnesty that would have allowed him and other Taliban members to live peacefully in a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

A co-founder of the Taliban along with Mullah 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 of Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada's three deputies.

Despite his military activities, Baradar was reportedly behind several attempts to begin peace talks, specifically in 2004 and 2009, and widely seen as a potentially key part of a negotiated peace deal.

Many fellow Taliban commanders were killed over the years following the initial invasion, including Baradar's rival Dadullah, who was killed in Helmand Province in 2007.

Baradar eventually rose to lead the Quetta Shura and became the de facto leader of the Taliban, directing the insurgency from Pakistan.

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's Inter-Services Intelligence.

Temperament-wise he has been described as acting as "an old-fashioned Pashtun tribal head" and a consensus builder.

He was imprisoned by Pakistan in 2010, possibly because he had been discussing a peace deal with the Afghan government secretly, without the involvement of Pakistan.

Baradar was arrested by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in late January or early February 2010 in Karachi.

Pakistan only confirmed the arrest a week later and Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied reports that US agents had been involved in the arrest.

According to New 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 realised one was Baradar himself.

He was released in 2018 at the request of the United States and was subsequently appointed a deputy leader of the Taliban and head of their political office in Qatar.

Following the Taliban victory in August 2021, he returned to Afghanistan and received his current government post.

Baradar is considered to be a moderate Taliban member.

U.S. President Donald Trump co-signed the February 2020 Doha agreement with him that led to the full withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan.

After the agreement was signed, the Taliban launched a military offensive against the Afghan government on 15 August 2021, while the U.S. withdrawal was still underway.

On 15 September 2021, Baradar was listed on Time magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People In 2021" for his role in the Taliban's victory.

Reports of his date and place of birth vary.