Taliban Co-Founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Will Lead The New Afghan Government

Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is all set to become the head of the new Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Baradar will be joined by Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of late Taliban co-founder Mullah Omar, and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, in senior positions in the government.

AP

While they will head the government, Haibatullah Akhunzada, the Taliban's supreme religious leader, will focus on religious matters and governance within the framework of Islam.

AP

For many years Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was the head of the Taliban's government in exile, based in Doha .

AFP

The leader's public profile has been largely limited to the release of annual messages during Islamic holidays.

Abdul Ghani 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.

Reuters

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.

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.

Reuters

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.