Taleban ex-deputy leader freed

The Afghan government has long demanded that Pakistan free Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taleban’s former deputy leader who was arrested in a joint raid with the CIA in Karachi in 2010.

The United States is also keen for the Afghan government to strike a peace deal with the Taleban before it withdraws most of its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

But the US pressured Pakistan not to release Baradar because of concerns he would return to the battlefield, officials said. Baradar will remain in Pakistan after his release and will be provided with tight security, said Pakistan’s intelligence and security officials who confirmed that he was freed but did not provide details, including where he was held.

He will be free to meet anyone he chooses, they said.

“The Afghan government welcomes Pakistan’s decision to release Mullah Baradar,” said Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“This release has occurred because of the Afghan government’s consistent pressure requesting that Mullah Baradar be set free,” he said. Afghanistan wants Baradar to be handed to authorities there, but Pakistan has refused to do so. “We hope that Mullah Baradar decides to come to Afghanistan,” Faizi said.

Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, a member of the council tasked by the Afghan government to negotiate with the Taleban, praised Baradar’s release, saying “we are very much hopeful that Mullah Baradar can play an important role in the peace process”.

Baradar, who is around 50 years old, was one of the founding members of the Taleban along with the group’s leader Mullah Omar. He served as a senior military leader and defence minister after the Taleban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996.

Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, who served as foreign minister when the Taleban ruled Afghanistan, also hailed Bardar’s release and cautioned Pakistan not to try to control his movements now that he is free. “They also have to allow him contact with Taleban leaders and for him to be useful for peace in Afghanistan,” Muttawakil said.

Not everyone agreed that Baradar’s release would contribute to peace, saying his long imprisonment had robbed him of both his influence and position in the Taleban.

“This is a very, very meager step. It will not bring peace. It is just a show,” said Mohammad Daoud Sultanzai, an Afghan political commentator and talk show host. “He doesn’t have an importance among the Taleban leadership, or any other leadership that would be able to deliver anything with authority.”

The US asked Pakistan to keep Baradar under house arrest rather than set him free, said senior Pakistani and American officials.

Pakistan refused the request, saying it would infuriate both the Afghan government and the Taleban, said the American official. The US believes Baradar is one of the smartest members of the Taleban and is worried he could give the group a strategic leg-up in its battle against Afghan security forces if he rejoins the insurgency, the official said.

The circumstances surrounding Baradar’s arrest in Karachi were murky. Afghan officials said at the time that he was holding secret peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and accused Pakistan of arresting him to sabotage or gain control of the process.

But American officials said the CIA was the driving force behind the arrest and Pakistani security forces who participated in the raid did not know they were detaining the Taleban’s deputy commander.

Mullah Baradar was once the right hand man of the Afghan Taleban’s supreme commander Mullah Omar

Born in 1968 in the southern province of Uruzgan, Abdul Ghani Baradar fought the occupying Soviet forces in the late 1980s before becoming one of the founding members of the Taleban movement.

When the Taleban took power in Kabul in 1996 after years of chaotic civil war, the young Baradar was a trusted friend of Omar and rose to become the movement’s top military strategist.

After the fall of the Taleban, senior militants fled across the border to rear bases in Pakistan, where Baradar became a member of the so-called Quetta Shura, the movement’s ruling council.

The shura, led by Omar, is widely reported to have its headquarters in Quetta, though Pakistani officials deny this.

Baradar was seen as more open to a negotiated end to the Afghan war than Omar — hence in part the desire for his release.

But analyst Rahimullah Yusufzai said Baradar’s significance had been greatly eroded by his time in Pakistani custody and it was unlikely the Taleban would accept him as a mediator, fearing he had come under the sway of Pakistani intelligence.

A mid-ranking Taleban official agreed, saying he expected Baradar would live quietly in Karachi, perhaps ferrying messages from time to time but not regaining his role in the Quetta Shura.

Pakistan is a key player in Afghan peace talks because of its historical ties to the Taleban. Islamabad helped the Taleban seize control of Afghanistan in 1996 and is widely believed to have maintained ties with the group, despite official denials.

But there is also significant distrust between the two, and Pakistan has arrested dozens of Taleban militants in the years following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 — possibly to hold as bargaining chips.

Pakistan has increasingly pushed for a peace settlement because it is worried that chaos in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of most US combat troops by the end of 2014 could make it more difficult to fight its own domestic Taleban militants. It could also send a flood of new refugees into Pakistan.

The most recent attempt to push forward peace negotiations foundered in June in the Qatari capital of Doha. The Afghan president pulled the plug on the talks even before they began because he was angered that the group marked the opening of its Doha political office with the flag, anthem and symbols of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — the group’s name when they ruled the country.

Another major hurdle to restarting talks is Washington’s reluctance to release five senior Taleban commanders being held at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, according to the American official.