“A high-level delegation led by ‘Mullah’ Baradar left Qatar and arrived in our beloved country this afternoon, landing at Kandahar airport,” in southern Afghanistan, Mohammad Naim said in a statement posted on Twitter.
“Mullah” is a designation that identifies the custodian of Islamic theology, usually the leader of the most fundamentalist movements.
This is the first time that an active Taliban leader has publicly returned to Afghanistan since the group was ousted in 2001 by a US-led Western coalition following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Kandahar was the country’s capital during the Taliban period (1996-2001), and it was in the province of the same name that the movement began in the early 1990s.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was born in Uruzgan province (south of the country), grew up in Kandahar and co-founded the Taliban in partnership with Mullah Omar, who died in 2013 but whose death was in hiding for two years.
Like many Afghans, his life was marked by the 1979 Soviet invasion, which made him a mujahid (soldier of God).
In 2001, following US intervention and the fall of the Taliban, Ghani Baradar will be part of a small group of rebels who defended an agreement to take over the Kabul administration, but the initiative failed.
He was arrested in 2010 as a Taliban warlord in Karachi, Pakistan, and released in 2018 under pressure from Washington.
Heard and respected by the various factions of the Taliban, he was appointed head of the group’s political office based in Qatar and continued direct negotiations with the Americans, which led to the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
He also conducted peace talks with the Afghan government, but the meetings did not lead to any agreement.
On Sunday, the Taliban captured Kabul, ending an offensive that began in May when US and NATO forces began withdrawing.
International forces have been in the country since 2001 as part of a United States-led offensive against the extremist regime (1996-2001) that welcomed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mainly responsible for the September 11 attacks, 2001.
The takeover of the capital ended a 20-year foreign military presence in Afghanistan by the United States and its NATO allies, including Portugal.
Faced with the brutality and radical interpretation of Islam inherent in the previous regime, the Taliban assured Afghans that “life, property and honor” would be respected and that women could study and work.
