Pakistan on Saturday released former Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, meeting a long-standing demand of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to advance peace efforts in the war-ravaged country.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban leader freed from a Pakistani jail on the request of the US less than three years ago, has emerged as an "undisputed victor" of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, according to a British media report.
Present at the signing ceremony was the Taliban's rarely seen Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who lost out in a power struggle last year to be prime minister.
Pakistan on Friday announced it will release former Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Saturday, meeting a long-standing demand of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to advance peace efforts in the war-ravaged country.
Pakistan may release top Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to boost reconciliation efforts with militants in Afghanistan and to play a larger role in the endgame in the neighbouring country.
The US is pushing for the transfer of captured Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to an America-run prison in Afghanistan, apparently frustrated by his silence during interrogation by Pakistani investigators.
While the United States is terming the arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghan Taliban No 2, as a big success that could provide 'a wealth of information,' it sounds strange to many that the arrested militant commander was sacked from his post by the Taliban central shura well before from his arrest.
The Pakistan government has turned down United States' request to hand over the Taliban's second-in command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was recently captured in Karachi.Pakistan has already made it clear that it would only hand over Baradar to Afghanistan if Kabul requests it to do so.Mullah Baradar is regarded as second only to Mullah Mohammad Omar, Taliban's supreme commander in Afghanistan.
The possible extradition of 12 Afghan Taliban militants, including Taliban No 2 Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrested by Pakistan has been stalled after the Lahore High Court dismissed petitions regarding the extradition.
'The unexpected turn of events and assertion of sovereignty by the Taliban has baffled the Pakistan security establishment.'
'We never talk about cut of trade ties with any countries. Rumor about this news has been a propaganda. It is not true'
"Now we live in a completely independent Afghanistan. The new government will be announced very soon," said Anaamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, reported Tolo News.
Pakistan has granted some concessions to key Afghan Taliban leaders in its custody, including Mullah Omar's deputy Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, shifting them to "roomier facilities" and allowing them to make telephonic contact with their families.
Pakistani officials have revealed that they had captured Taliban's operational commander Abdul Ghani Baradar in February to shut down his secret peace talks with the Afghanistan government.Baradar was captured in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces in Karachi."We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us," The New York Times quoted a Pakistani security official as saying.
"Due to scheduling reasons, it is inconvenient for China to attend the meeting," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told mediapersons.
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar leaked the whereabouts of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden to American investigators, the Sunday Mirror reported.
The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban forces operating in Afghanistan, is being seen as a dramatic shift in the policies of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, which had hitherto covertly supported some of the organisation's top leaders.But experts warn that by helping the Central Intelligence Agency nab Baradar, the Pakistan government and the ISI will lose the sympathies of Mullah Omer-led Afghan Taliban.
"China and the Afghan Taliban have unimpeded and effective communication and consultation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing in Beijing.
The arrest of Baradar, said to be second-in-command to Omar, is a major blow to the Taliban and is being described as a major success to Obama Administration's war against terrorism in the Af-Pak region.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are discussing the possible release of Taliban prisoners, including the outfit's powerful commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to boost the Afghan peace process, foreign office spokesman Moazzam Khan said on Friday.
Pakistan has released 14 Afghan Taliban cadres, including 'commander' Anwar Haq Mujahid, and may consider a request by Afghan peace negotiators to free Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to kick-start the Afghan reconciliation process. The 14 Afghan Taliban cadres were freed in two phases.
A Pakistani court gave three weeks to the federal government to submit a detailed reply on the status of 10 high-profile Afghan Taliban leaders who are in the custody of authorities.
The Afghan government was holding secret talks with the Taliban's No 2 when he was captured in Pakistan, and the arrest infuriated president Hamid Karzai, according to one of Karzai's advisers.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari recently met 50 captured Taliban leaders, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in a prison to assure them that their outfit had his government's full support and that they would be freed soon, a media report in London claimed on Sunday.
The man at the centre of the storm, Newsweek magazine, reported was Mullah Gul Agha Akhund, who is an in-law and long time confident of Mullah Omar. Akhund is brandishing a handwritten letter from Mullah Omar to claim to be the new second-in-command of the Afghan Taliban. But, his claim is being hotly contested by top military commanders of the outfit.
The terror group is in touch with the international community and intra-Afghan parties to make government in Afghanistan.
Taliban also blamed the US for encouraging the Afghan elite to leave the country, Tolo News reported.
The United States conducted an airstrike on Wednesday against the Taliban in Nahr-e Saraj of Helmand district of Afghanistan, the US military spokesperson said on Wednesday. This was a "defensive strike" to disrupt the attacks by Taliban, the Pajhowk Afghan News reported citing the spokesperson.
Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund is appointed as Prime Minister with two deputies Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Molavi Abdul Salam Hanafi.
Time's profile of Modi says that in its 74 years as an independent nation, India has had three pivotal leaders -- Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Modi. "Narendra Modi is the third, dominating the country's politics like no one since them."
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday said it is too premature to congratulate ourselves over the UN Security Council adopting a resolution on Afghanistan, and cautioned that the possible axis of China, Pakistan and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is a cause for worry.
Even though the Taliban has managed to capture Afghanistan and form a government, an internal rift between the faction has started emerging, according to media reports.
After 18 years of war, the US and the Taliban signed the peace deal in Doha on Saturday to facilitate intra-Afghan dialogue in Oslo this month and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan in 14 months.
CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul on Monday with Baradar in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity,
"The war in Afghanistan is over, now we will work together to rebuild this country," said Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid at a press conference in Kabul.
The Afghan Taliban is struggling to find a successor to slain chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
In a surprise move, Pakistan's powerful intelligence chief Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed on Saturday dashed to Kabul, amidst the Taliban struggling to finalise and install an inclusive government in Afghanistan that would be acceptable to the international community.
"We want to establish a government that includes all sides," Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah said, adding that they want an end to the war.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during his telephonic conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday, discussed the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan amidst chaotic airlifts of Afghan civilians and diplomats by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries before the August 31 deadline.
The Taliban have confirmed that Pakistan's powerful intelligence chief Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed has met its de facto leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, amidst efforts by the insurgent group to finalise a government in Afghanistan.
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