The group, designated by the US as a terrorist organisation, oversees the Taliban's financial and military assets along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In an opinion piece in the New York Times last year before the signing of the Doha agreement, Haqqani wrote: "For more than four decades, precious Afghan lives have been lost every day. Everyone has lost somebody they loved.
Everyone is tired of war. I am convinced that the killing and the maiming must stop. He became a lynchpin of the insurgency after the militants were toppled by the US-led invasion in He remained in prison for eight years, until he was released as part of a plan to facilitate the peace process.
He has been the head of their political office in Qatar since January In , Baradar became the first Taliban leader to communicate directly with a US president after having a telephone conversation with Donald Trump. Before that, Baradar signed the Doha agreement on the withdrawal of US troops on behalf of the Taliban. He is believed to be little more than 30 years old and is currently the leader of the group's military operations. Following the death of former Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour in , some militants wanted to appoint Yaqoob as the group's new supreme commander, but others felt that he was young and lacking in experience.
As the Taliban advanced through the country, Yaqoob urged Taliban fighters not to harm members of the Afghan military or government and to stay out of abandoned homes of government and security officials who had fled , according to the Associated Press news agency. Taliban: Women to have rights within Islamic law. Uncertain times ahead for Afghan women. Taliban return raises fears of Afghan haven for terror. The U. State Department in a statement expressed concern that the Cabinet included only Taliban, no women and personalities with a troubling track record, but said the new administration would be judged by its actions.
The carefully worded statement noted the Cabinet was interim, but said the Taliban would be held to their promise to give safe passage to both foreign nationals and Afghans, with proper travel documents, and ensure Afghan soil would not be used as to harm another. The interim prime minister, Mullah Hasan Akhund, also headed the Taliban government in Kabul during the last years of its rule.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who had led talks with the U. It urged foreign diplomats, embassies, consulates and humanitarian organizations to return to Afghanistan. A long-time Taliban member, he is unlikely to satisfy demands for inclusivity and minority representation. Besides Haqqani as head of the police, the other top security post of defense minister went to Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob , the son of Taliban founder and near mythic figure Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The Haqqani network, which dominates most of eastern Afghanistan, has been blamed for dramatic attacks in Kabul in the past two decades and for orchestrating kidnappings, often of Americans. The Cabinet selection defied the many voices that had urged inclusivity and moderation. That may have helped hand the Taliban a surprising win in the mostly Tajik province of Badakhshan, which they overran with hardly a fight.
Hopes of a negotiated peace were raised in , when the Taliban announced plans to open an office in Qatar. But mistrust on all sides remained high and the violence went on. In August , the Taliban admitted they had covered up Mullah Omar's death - reportedly of health problems at a hospital in Pakistan - for more than two years. The following month, the group said it had put aside weeks of infighting and rallied around a new leader in the form of Mullah Mansour, who had been the deputy of Mullah Omar.
At around the same time, the Taliban seized control of a provincial capital for the first time since their defeat in , taking control of the strategically important city of Kunduz.
Mullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in May and replaced by his deputy Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, who remains in control of the group. In the year following the US-Taliban peace deal of February - which was the culmination of a long spell of direct talks - the Taliban appeared to shift their tactics from complex attacks in cities and on military outposts to a wave of targeted assassinations that terrorised Afghan civilians. The targets - journalists, judges, peace activists, women in positions of power - suggested that the Taliban had not changed their extremist ideology, only their strategy.
Despite grave concerns from Afghan officials over the government's vulnerability to the Taliban without international support, the new US president, Joe Biden, announced in April that all American forces would leave the country by 11 September - two decades to the day since the felling of the World Trade Center. Having outlasted a superpower through two decades of war, the Taliban began seizing vast swathes of territory, before once again toppling a government in Kabul in the wake of a foreign power withdrawing.
They swept across Afghanistan in just 10 days, taking their first provincial capital on 6 August. By 15 August, they were at the gates of Kabul. Their lightning advance prompted tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, many arriving in the Afghan capital, others heading for neighbouring countries. The Taliban's return to rule brings an end to almost 20 years of a US-led coalition's presence in the country. Afghans face pivotal moment as US 'closes the book'. A year of violence on the road to peace.
US to evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters. Image source, Getty Images. Taliban fighters pictured in Laghman Province. They began a lightning offensive earlier this year. Rise to power.
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