Who Leads the Taliban?
Voice of America
Taliban fighters captured major areas in quick succession on their way to seizing Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Sunday, 20 years after U.S.-led forces knocked the group from power. Here are some of its key leaders.
Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada He is the Taliban’s supreme leader, a position he took following the death of his predecessor, Akhtar Mansour, in a 2016 U.S. drone strike. He previously served as a senior judge in the court system during the Taliban’s earlier rule of Afghanistan. After the 2001 U.S. invasion, he fled across the border into Pakistan. His public profile has been limited, mainly consisting of the release of messages during Islamic holidays. Mullah Abdul Ghani BaradarPalestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.