Taliban co-founder and number two, Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in Kabul this Saturday for talks with other members of the movement and political leaders about the formation of a new government in Afghanistan.
An official Taliban source told France-Presse that Baradar will meet in Kabul with “jihadist leaders and politicians to create an inclusive government.”
Baradar returned to Afghanistan on Tuesday, two days after the Taliban came to power in Kabul.
The Taliban co-founder was in Qatar, where he headed the movement’s political office and negotiated with the United States that led to the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
On his return to Afghanistan, Baradar landed in the city of Kandahar (south), which was the epicenter of Taliban power when the radical Shia movement first came to power between 1996 and 2001.
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, located about 500 km southwest of Kabul.
It was in the province of the same name that the Taliban movement originated in the early 1990s.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, 53, co-founded the Taliban with Mohammed Omar, who died in 2013 but whose death has been in hiding for two years.
Like many Afghans, Baradar’s life was marked by the 1979 Soviet invasion, which turned him into a “mujahid” (fighter).
In 2001, following US intervention and the fall of the Taliban, he would have been part of a small group of rebels ready to come to terms with the Kabul administration, but to no avail, AFP reported.
Baradar was the Taliban military leader when he was arrested in 2010 in Karachi, Pakistan and was released in 2018.
The Taliban movement is currently led by Haybatullah Akhundzadeh.
The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan following their conquest of Kabul a week ago following an intensified offensive in May that coincided with the beginning of the withdrawal of international forces from the country 20 years later.
