Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar: Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s co-founder and deputy leader, has arrived in Afghanistan, according to a spokesman for the Taliban’s political bureau.
This is Baradar’s first visit to Afghanistan in 20 years, and it comes 11 years after he was apprehended by security forces in neighbouring Pakistan.
Baradar’s return will fuel fears that the new government will be modelled after the Taliban’s pre-2000 era when Sharia law was imposed in Afghanistan.
He joined the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s after being born in Uruzgan province in 1968. After the Russians were driven out in 1989, the country devolved into civil war between rival warlords, and Baradar established a madrassa in Kandahar with his former commander and reputed brother-in-law, Mohammad Omar. The Taliban was founded by the two mullahs, a movement led by young Islamic scholars dedicated to the religious purification of the country and the establishment of an emirate.
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The Taliban swept to power in 1996 after a series of stunning conquests of provincial capitals that caught the world off guard, just as it has done in recent weeks.
Baradar, Mullah Omar’s deputy and widely regarded as a brilliant strategist was a key architect of those victories.
People across Afghanistan are waiting to see what kind of regime they will live under and whether those who have supported the US-backed government for the past 20 years will face retaliation from the Taliban.
Taliban officials stated in televised briefings, statements, and press conferences that retribution was not in their plans.
According to its spokesman, the Taliban will grant “blanket amnesty” to all Afghans, including members of the Afghan military and interpreters.
“We do not want Afghanistan to be a battlefield,” said Zabihullah Mujahid at a press conference in Kabul on Tuesday.
“Today, the fighting is over…everyone who was opposed to the opposition has been granted amnesty.” The fighting should not happen again.”
“Those families who are currently fleeing at the airport should be returning… “I assure them that no one will ever question them about what they have done or have not done in their lifetime,” he added.
Maulvi Mohammad Yaqub, the group’s deputy leader, also warned fighters not to “enter into the homes of people.”
Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar…
