Mullah Baradar: The likely new head of Taliban-led Afghanistan

As the Taliban took over Afghanistan's capital city Kabul on Sunday, along all major cities and the presidential palace amid the exit of the US-led forces, the group is ready to set up a new Islamic state.

Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is likely to be declared as the head of the Taliban-ed Afghan state, reports the News18.

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.

He is 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.

There is little clarity yet on the form of the new Afghan regime. But Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Naeem told Al Jazeera TV that the group "did not want to live in isolation and (called) for peaceful international relations".

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is better known as Mullah Baradar, is one of the co-founders of the Taliban movement in 1994. While Haibatullah Akhundzada is the Taliban's overall leader, Baradar is its political chief and its most public face. He currently heads the political office of the insurgent group and is part of its negotiating team in Doha, reports the First Post. 

Baradar is reported to be one of the trusted commanders of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and his married to the latter's sister. Baradar has developed a profile as a military strategist and commander. He held important responsibilities in nearly all the major wars across Afghanistan and remained a top commander of the Taliban's formation in the western region as well as Kabul. At the time the Taliban were toppled in 2001 he was their deputy minister of defence.

According to Interpol, Baradar was born in Weetmak village in Dehrawood district, Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, in 1968. He is also known to be part of the Popalzai branch of the Durrani tribe, the same as former Afghan president Hamid Karzai. He fought alongside the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s. After the Russians were driven out in 1992 and the country fell into civil war between rival warlords, Baradar set up a madrassa in Kandahar with Omar, and the two eventually founded the Taliban movement.

Following the Taliban's collapse in 2001, Baradar is believed to have been among a small group of insurgents who approached then interim leader Hamid Karzai with a letter outlining a potential deal that would have seen the militants recognise the new administration. Moreover, during the Taliban's 20-year exile, Baradar had gained a reputation for being a potent military leader and a subtle political operator. Western diplomats came to view him as the most resistant to ISI control, and most amenable to political contacts with Kabul. Baradar was captured in a joint US-Pakistan raid in Karachi in February 2010. He was later released in 2018 and relocated to Qatar after then-president Trump made the request as a part of peace talks.

Baradar signed the Doha agreement with the US in February 2020. As per the agreement, the US and Taliban agreed not to fight each other and it was supposed to be followed by power-sharing talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government. However, there was little progress on that end.