Who is Mullah Baradar
Despite his military activities, Baradar was reportedly behind several attempts to begin peace talk.
LAHORE (Web Desk) - Born in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, Baradar fought in the war -- covertly backed by the United States and Pakistan -- to expel Soviet troops from Afghanistan in the 1980s. He is a Durrani Pashtun of the Popalzai tribe.
When the Taliban rose to power in 1996, Baradar s friendship with supreme leader Mullah Omar made him deputy defence minister.
After the Taliban government was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2001, hundreds of Taliban hardliners are believed to have fled over the border to Pakistan.
Although little is known about Baradar s more recent activity, Interpol has said that he had been a member of the Taliban s so-called Quetta Shura leadership since May 2007.
He was arrested in Pakistan s southern port city of Karachi, reportedly in a secret raid by CIA and Pakistani agents, an operation that was described as a huge blow to the group.
At the time, Baradar was reported to have been second or third-in-command of the Quetta Shura.
The New York Times -- which broke the story of Baradar s arrest -- said the commander was a close associate of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks.
In early 2010, the Afghan government and the former UN envoy to Afghanistan said his detention had adversely affected efforts to talk to the insurgents.
He fought during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan, serving in the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.
He later operated a madrassa in Maiwand, Kandahar Province alongside his former commander, Mohammad Omar (the two may be brothers-in-law via marriage to two sisters). In 1994 he helped Omar found the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
During Taliban rule (1996–2001), Baradar held a variety of posts.
He was reportedly governor of Herat and Nimruz provinces, and/or the Corps Commander for western Afghanistan. An unclassified U.S. State Department document lists him as the former Deputy Chief of Army Staff and Commander of Central Army Corps, Kabul while Interpol states that he was the Taliban s Deputy Minister of Defense.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban with the help of Afghan forces. Baradar fought against the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance and, according to Newsweek, "hopped on a motorcycle and drove his old friend Omar to safety in the mountains" in November 2001 as Taliban defenses were crumbling.
One story holds that a U.S.-linked Afghan force actually seized Baradar and other Taliban figures sometime that month, but Pakistani intelligence secured their release.
Another story reported by Dutch journalist Bette Dam contends that Baradar actually saved Hamid Karzai s life when the latter had entered Afghanistan to build an anti-Taliban force.
The new Afghan government was organized in accordance with the December 2001 Bonn Agreement; Hamid Karzai served as interim leader and later President of Afghanistan. Baradar now found himself fighting international forces and the newly formed Afghan government.
Many fellow Taliban commanders were killed over the years following the initial invasion, including Baradar s rival Mullah Dadullah who was killed in Helmand Province in 2007. Baradar eventually rose to lead the Quetta Shura and became the de facto leader of the Taliban, directing the insurgency from Pakistan.
Temperament-wise he has been described as acting as "an old-fashioned Pashtun tribal head" and a consensus builder.
Despite his military activities, Baradar was reportedly behind several attempts to begin peace talks, specifically in 2004 and 2009, and widely seen as a potentially key part of a negotiated peace deal.
