A00117 - Abdul Ghani Baradar

Abdul Ghani Baradar (b. c. 1968) is an Afghan militant who was one of the founders of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the deputy of its first leader, Mohammad Omar. He is known by the honorific Mullah, and Omar nicknamed him 'Baradar', which means 'brother', or Mullah Brother. Baradar was arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani intelligence forces in early 2010 and was released on October 24, 2018, at the request of the United States. Since his release he has played an increasingly influential role within the Afghan Taliban movement.

Baradar was born in about 1968 in the Weetmak village of Deh Rahwod District in Uruzgan Province of Afghanistan. He is a Durrani Pashtun of the Sadozai tribe which is a sub-tribe of the Popalzai. He and Mohammed Omar became friends when they were teenagers.

Baradar fought during the 1980s in the Soviet-Afghan War in Kandahar (mainly in the Panjwayi area), serving as Omar's deputy in a group of Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Afghan government. Omar gave him the nom de guerre 'Baradar', which means 'brother', because of their close friendship. He later operated a madrassa in Maiwand, Kandahar Province, alongside Omar. According to Western media, Omar and Baradar may also be brothers-in-law via marriage to two sisters. In 1994, he was one of four men, including Omar, who founded 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 United States 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 attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban with the help of Afghan forces. Baradar fought against the United States-supported Northern Alliance and, one occasion 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 United States-linked Afghan force actually seized Baradar and other Taliban figures sometime that month, but Pakistani intelligence secured their release. Another story contends that Baradar actually saved Hamid Karzai's life when Karzai 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 soon found himself fighting international forces and the newly formed Afghan government. In the years that followed, many fellow Taliban commanders were killed, including Baradar's rival 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.

Baradar was arrested by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in late January or early February 2010 in Karachi.  Pakistan only confirmed the arrest a week later and Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied reports that United States agents had been involved in the arrest. American intelligence agencies had tipped off Pakistani counter-terror officers about a meeting of militants with a possible link to Baradar, but that it was only after several men had been arrested that they realized one was Baradar himself. Pakistani officials were then claiming that they had been targeting Baradar himself, because he had been secretly discussing a peace deal with the Afghan govenrnment without the involvement of Pakistan, who had long supported the Taliban. They claimed that the ISI tracked Baradar's cell phone to an area of Karachi, called on the CIA to use a more sophisticated tracking device to find his precise location, and then the Pakistanis moved in to arrest him. 

Although some analysts saw Baradar's arrest as a significant shift in Pakistan's position, others claimed that Pakistan arrested Baradar to stop his negotiations with the Karzai government, so that Pakistan would get a seat at the table – because an agreement between the Taliban and the Karzai government could deprive Pakistan of influence in Afghanistan.  

The Afghan government was reportedly holding secret talks with Baradar and his arrest was said to have infuriated President Hamid Karzai. Despite repeated claims that Pakistan would deliver Baradar to Afghanistan if formally asked to do so, and that his was underway, he was expressly excluded from the list of Taliban leaders planned to be released by Pakistan in November 2012.  Abdul Qayyum Zakir became the Taliban military leader after Baradar's arrest. Nine Taliban leaders, but not Baradar, were released on November 23, 2012.

On October 25, 2018, the Taliban confirmed that Pakistan had released Baradar. He was subsequently appointed to be the chief of the Taliban's diplomatic office in Doha, Qatar. Washington special envoy Zalmay Khalizad claimed that Baradar was released at the request of the United States.

In February 2020, Baradar signed the Doha Agreement on the withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban.

On August 17, 2021, Baradar returned to Afghanistan for the first time since the fall of the original Taliban government in 2001.