The Afghan Taliban, a familiar and unfamiliar organization, an organization that terrifies the United States, Europe, and the West.
With the afghan Taliban's attack on the government-controlled capital Kabul on August 15, 2021, marking the Taliban's return to power 20 years after being overthrown and removed from power by the US military, and also means that the 2001 US war in Afghanistan suffered a historic defeat, and the Taliban have since ended 20 years of underground life in hiding.
Unexpectedly, the Taliban's 70,000 or 80,000 armed forces crushed the 300,000 Afghan government troops raised by the United States, and it also happened with the support of NATO coalition forces.
With such a strong fighting force, who is leading the Taliban armed forces step by step to victory?
This brings us to the six core leaders of the Afghan Taliban.
The first is the supreme leader of the Taliban: Akhonzada
Akhonzada, whose full name is Murawi Khabatula Akhnzada, was born in 1961 in the Nurzai tribe of Kandahar province, the base camp of the Taliban, and belongs to the Pashtun people. Because his father was a cleric and the Taliban had long been in business in Kandahar, Ahunzada was influenced by religious ideas from an early age, became a scholar of Islamic law, and joined the Taliban at an early age.
Afghan Taliban No. 1: Akhonzada
After the Taliban came to power in 1996, the religiously knowledgeable Akhonzada was entrusted with the task of serving as chief judge of the Islamic Court, as well as teaching at a Madinah school run by the founder of the Taliban, Omar, and many of the Taliban's top figures still come from this school and have basically listened to Akhonzada's lectures. Profound religious cultivation became an important foundation for Akhonzada to ascend to the top of the Taliban in the future.
Even after the Taliban were overthrown, Ahunzada did not lead the armed retaliation against the U.S. military, as many high-ranking Taliban figures did, but preached and taught for 15 years at a mosque in the southwestern Pakistani town of Kuchirak, living a "leisurely" teaching life of ignoring the outside of the window and reading only the sages.
Does Ahonzada really care about the affairs of the Taliban?
This is too small to look down on him. Akhonzada is an extremely low-key figure with big things in mind, able to turn the tide at a critical moment and save the Taliban from danger. For example, in 2015, when Al-Mansour succeeded Taliban founder Omar (son-in-law of terror tycoon bin Laden) as the second supreme leader of the Taliban, it was Akhozada who persuaded some of the Taliban leaders to admit that Mansour was the Taliban's handle because of internal challenges.
Mansour was grateful for this and quickly promoted Ahunzada as his deputy, even seeing him as his successor. Sure enough, in the last moments of Obama's administration, the US military drone air raided Mansour's old lair, causing Mansour, who had been the top leader of the Taliban for less than a year, to lose the hands of the US military, and in the crisis, Mansour designated Akhonzada in his will to inherit the throne.
In this way, Akhonzada succeeded Mansour as the third supreme leader of the Taliban in May 2016.
A scholar-type literati in charge of the Taliban's "gun", Akhonzada relies not only on his religious identity, but also on his hidden toughness, knowing how to combine rigidity and softness. For example, on the first day of Akhonzada's ascension to the throne, he gave the US NATO a dismount with three fires, instructing the Taliban armed forces to create an explosion in the capital Kabul, in order to urge foreign troops to stop "occupying" Afghanistan; when he learned that the United States wanted to withdraw its troops to hold peace talks with the Taliban, Akhnzada responded positively, urging the United States not to waste opportunities.
It can be said that all the military and diplomatic actions of the Afghan Taliban are ordered by Akhonzada behind the scenes, pushing the Taliban to complete their goals step by step, and the number 1 figure of the Taliban has a high prestige within it.
The second is the Taliban's deputy leader in charge of political affairs: Baradal
Baradal, whose full name is Abdel Ghani Baradal, was born in 1968 in Uruzgan Province, southern Afghanistan. Although Baradal is younger than Akhonzada, his seniority in the Taliban is no weaker than that of Akhonzada. It should be known that Baradal and Omar, the first supreme leader of the Taliban, are the co-founders of the Taliban and are one of Omar's most trusted cronies.
So that after 2006, Omar once transferred the Taliban power to Baradal, becoming the actual ruler of the Taliban, and he still holds the Taliban's military, political, religious, financial, personnel appointments and other powers, such as making authoritative political statements on behalf of the Taliban, negotiating peace with the United States and other international political affairs need to pass through Baradal, in addition to leading the Taliban delegation to visit Tianjin.
Afghanistan's Taliban 2 man, Baradal
As for why Ahunzada can occupy a high position, it actually has a lot to do with his peaceful character. Baradal has always treated colleagues or subordinates with an approachable attitude within the Taliban, listening to the opinions of those around him widely, winning the hearts of the people, and every time the Taliban and Afghan tribes negotiate, Baradal can basically solve it as soon as he goes out.
As head of the political committee, one of the Taliban's 17 committees responsible for military, intelligence, political and economic affairs, Baradal is a veritable Taliban second-in-command, second only to the Taliban helmsman Akhonzada.
The third is Yakubo, the Taliban's deputy leader in charge of military affairs
Yakubo's full name is Muhammad Yakubo, and although he is only 32 years old, he is a well-known figure within the Taliban, and his status is noble! Yakube's greatest aura is that he belongs to the "Taliban Prince", the son of Omar, the founder of the Taliban and the first supreme leader, and Yakuber almost became the third boss of the Taliban by virtue of his father's prestige.
In 2015, after the Taliban's second leader, Mansour, was bombed by the U.S. military, he left a will for Akhozada to succeed him, but some tribal leaders loyal to Omar did not admit it, hoping that the "Taliban prince" Yakuber would succeed to the throne, so the Taliban also had serious infighting and even military conflicts. At this critical moment, the 26-year-old Yakuber took the initiative to let the sages elect Ahunzada, which finally stabilized the Taliban.
As the number 1 person in the Taliban, Akhonzada is very grateful to Yakubo, not only promoting him to the chairman of the Taliban Military Commission (the third leader of the Taliban), but also appointing Yakuber to act as the supreme leader of the Taliban during his infection with the new crown virus and manage the entire Taliban affairs, which shows Akhonzada's high trust and importance to Yakuber.
The fourth is Haqqani, the leader of the Taliban in charge of the "Haqqani Network"
Haqqani's full name was Sirajuddin Haqqani, and like Yakubo, he was a second-generation official. Haqqani's father, Jalarudin Haqqani, was a prominent commander of the Anti-Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s, and single-handedly founded the extremist military force "Haqqani Network", known for its suicide bombing attacks, which became a branch of the Taliban after the Taliban took control of the entire country in 1996.
In view of the US NATO invasion of Afghanistan, for decades, the "Haqqani Network" has done a lot of retaliatory terrorist attacks against the US embassy in Afghanistan and nato coalition forces, which has caused the United States a headache. After the death of Jalarudin Haqqani in 2018, his son Sirajuddin Haqqani took over the "Haqqani Network" armed forces, mainly active in the capital Kabul and the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, specifically responsible for supervising the financial and military assets of the Taliban in the border areas, so Sirajuddin Haqqani was hailed as the Taliban's "steward".
Sirajuddin Haqqani is very hidden in the whereabouts of other Taliban leaders, almost invisible, but the armed forces he leads are extremely active, this time the Taliban's all-round counteroffensive against the Afghan government forces, Sirajuddin Haqqani is an important leader, behind the scenes commanded the "Haqqani Network" armed siege of the city, in the Taliban military status second only to Akubo, belongs to the Taliban four leaders.
The fifth is Hakim, the chief magistrate of the Taliban's competent judiciary
Hakim's full name is Abdul Hakim Haqqani, not to mention that he has participated in the Taliban peace negotiations in Doha, in fact, Hakim is not skilled in political and military affairs, his areas of expertise are justice and religion, and he belongs to the senior Taliban judges.
During the 20 years since the Taliban stepped down, Hakim has long served as the Taliban's chief judge and has led a powerful commission of religious scholars who oversee the Taliban judiciary and has become the most trusted person in the Taliban's no. 1 figure, Akhonzada.
Sixth is stannikzai, the Taliban leader in charge of foreign affairs
Steinikzai,whose full name is Mohammed Abbas Stannikzai, was a cabinet minister as early as the Taliban's administration, belonged to the old Taliban's clique, and has rich experience in handling domestic and foreign affairs, so much so that Stannikzai has long assisted the Taliban's second-in-command, Baradal, serving as the director of the Taliban's political office in Qatar and participating in leading international negotiations.
Five years ago, the year the current Taliban Supreme Leader Akhonzada "succeeded to the throne," Stanikzai visited China as head of the Taliban delegation.
The above six figures are now the highest-ranking and most powerful figures of the Afghan Taliban, who commanded the Taliban to quickly capture the capital Kabul, making all the "efforts" of the United States in Afghanistan in vain.