Foreign Policy: Early indications suggest Afghanistan will be led by a 12-man council of criminals, terrorists, and the more pliant members of the former government. The three most powerful men in the leadership council will be Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban; Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of the group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar,
VOA News August 19, 2021 Taliban fighters captured major areas in quick succession on their way to seizing Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Sunday, 20 years after U.S.-led forces knocked the group from power. Here are some of its key leaders. Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada He is the Taliban’s supreme leader, a position he took following the death
Jamie Dettmer VOA News August 16, 2021 The rapid Taliban offensive across Afghanistan that culminated Sunday with the flight of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was meticulously planned and executed with ruthless efficiency, say Western military experts. And they note the Islamist militants appeared to have learned from their tactical mistake in the mid-1990s, when they
By Ron Synovitz RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi August 6, 2021 With the Taliban in control of more than half of all districts in Afghanistan, promises made by Taliban political negotiators in Doha appear to be falling by the wayside. The movement’s so-called Political Affairs Commission in Doha had vowed in a February 2020 peace deal with the
Hanif Sufizada via The Conversation: In the fiscal year that ended in March 2020, the Taliban reportedly brought in US$1.6 billion, according to Mullah Yaqoob, son of the late Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who revealed the Taliban’s income sources in a confidential report commissioned by NATO and later obtained by Radio Free Europe/Radio
By Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty November 7, 2020 Major Afghan cities have been largely spared from the deadly militant attacks that once struck them regularly. The Taliban agreed to stop bombing urban centers under a landmark peace deal signed with the United States in February. The militant group largely complied, shifting its focus to
By Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 16, 2020 The Taliban’s burgeoning financial might could make the militant group immune to pressure from the international community as it negotiates a role in postwar Afghanistan, according to a confidential report commissioned by NATO and obtained by RFE/RL. The Taliban “has achieved, or is close to achieving,
By Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 27, 2020 Mohammad Yaqoob was virtually unknown five years ago when the Taliban disclosed the mysterious death of his father and its founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Taliban acknowledged that its spiritual leader had been dead for more than two years, soon after Afghan intelligence said he had
Atlantic Council: The COVID-19 pandemic is transforming international relations not just by straining relations among powerful states, but also by disrupting violent nonstate actors. Perhaps no major militant outfit has felt the impact as much as the Taliban. The group’s leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, is either seriously ill with the virus or possibly dead. Sirajuddin Haqqani,
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan June 2, 2020 Taliban officials have denied a report that its leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, died after contracting the coronavirus. Foreign Policy magazine, citing unnamed Taliban officials, reported on June 1 that Mullah Akhundzada contracted COVID-19 and possibly died while receiving treatment abroad. Foreign Policy quoted Mawlawi Mohammad Ali Jan Ahmad, a senior