Pakistan has announced that it will release a prisoner, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
In principle, we have agreed to release him. The timing is being discussed. It should be very soon ... I think within this month," Sartaj Aziz, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's adviser on foreign affairs, told Reuters in an interview.
Exclusive: Pakistan to free former Taliban second-in-command this month, Reuters, September 2013
Mullah Baradar was captured by Pakistan ISI and United States CIA, in Karachi in 2010.
He seems to have been held in house arrest style.
Pakistani minders have since shuttled Baradar from one safe house to another[.]
Feared Taliban former No 2 may now hold key to Afghan peace, Reuters, September 2013
As for Mr. Baradar, he is now living comfortably in a safe house of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Pakistani official said. “He’s relaxing,” the official said.
Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest, New York Times, August 2010
Mullah Baradar is said to have been with the Taliban since the beginning. In the spring of 1994, Kabul was at civil war, and southern Afghanistan was under the control of a patchwork of local strongmen and militias. In the Taliban origin story, Mullah Omar had started the movement after discovering the bodies of three Herati women, dumped in a ditch near the road checkpoint of one commander in Kandahar province.
After the Soviets withdrew and the Kremlin's puppet regime in Kabul collapsed, Omar and Baradar tried to settle down in Maiwand and run their own madrassa. But they were disgusted by the behavior of the local warlords, who had taken to kidnapping and raping village girls and boys. Omar led a revolt against them with a tiny force of some 30 men and half as many rifles, and Baradar was among his first recruits. The movement grew until it controlled most of Afghanistan.
America’s New Nightmare, Newsweek, July 2009
Taliban folklore has it that Baradar was present on the day in 1994 when Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's leader, launched his campaign to cleanse Afghanistan of rapacious warlords by hanging one particularly loathsome militia chief from the barrel of a tank.
Analysis: Afghanistan's peace hopes may rest on Taliban captive, Reuters
Thomas Ruttig points out that Ahmed Rashid's 2001 book does not mention Mullah Baradar, though.
He seems to have been rather a latecomer in the higher ranks of the Taleban movement. He is not mentioned in any of the lists in Ahmed Rashid’s reference book ‘The Taleban’ (2001).
Implications of Mulla Baradar’s Arrest, Afghanistan Analysts Network, February 2010
After the U.S. invasion in 2001, Mullah Omar had left Afghanistan on the back of Mullah Baradar's motorcycle.
He was there for Omar at the end as well. As U.S. bombs pounded Kandahar in November 2001, Mullah Baradar hopped on a motorcycle and drove his old friend to safety in the mountains.
America’s New Nightmare, Newsweek, July 2009
Mullah Baradar had also come to the rescue of Hamid Karzai in those days. Karzai and Baradar are both of the Popalzai tribe.
President Karzai started to ask for Mullah Baradar's help in 2001. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the Americans helped Karzai take control of ‘his’ region in Uruzgan from the Taliban. By talking and negotiating he convinced one tribal leader after another to support him.
When Karzai found himself in a life-threatening situation while in the Durji mountains he was rescued by Mullah Baradar, who was then the Taliban’s defence minister. In exchange, Karzai agreed not to punish Mullah Baradar for his role as a Taliban leader. Karzai assured him that he had nothing to worry about and that the Taliban would later be allowed to participate in the government. However things turned out differently.
Mullah Baradar: friend or foe?, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, February 2010
After the U.S. invasion, Mullah Baradar seems to have laid down his arms and retired from political life. He later fled to Pakistan and took up war, only after former Taliban members were aggressively pursed by the U.S. Anand Gopal tells us this is a common story of the insurgency.
The Taliban’s resurgence in Kandahar post-2001 was not inevitable or preordained. The Taliban—from senior leadership levels down to the rank and file—by and large surrendered to the new government and retired to their homes. But in the early years after 2001, there was a lack of a genuine, broad-based reconciliation process in which the Taliban leadership would be allowed to surrender in exchange for amnesty and protection from persecution. Rather, foreign forces and their proxies pursued an unrelenting drive against former regime members, driving many of them to flee to Pakistan and launch an insurgency.
Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar, New American Foundation, November 2010
At the time of the 2010 arrest, by various account, Mullah Baradar was the Taliban #2, or was of some lesser importance, or was even more important than just #2.
In [Mullah Omar's] place, the adversary that American forces are squaring off against in Afghanistan—the man ultimately responsible for the spike in casualties that has made July the deadliest month for Coalition soldiers since the war began in 2001—is Baradar. A cunning, little-known figure, he may be more dangerous than Omar ever was.
In more than two dozen interviews for this profile, past and present members of the Afghan insurgency portrayed Baradar as no mere stand-in for the reclusive Omar. They say Baradar appoints and fires the Taliban's commanders and governors; presides over its top military council and central ruling Shura in Quetta, the city in southwestern Pakistan where most of the group's senior leaders are based; and issues the group's most important policy statements in his own name.
America’s New Nightmare, Newsweek, July 2009
Reporting at the time focused on Pakistan and U.S. motivation for the arrest. Baradar had been in contact with Ahmed Wali Karzai, among others.
[Senior Civilian Representative Frank Ruggiero] asked AWK [Ahmed Wali Karzai] his views on the recent capture in Pakistan of Taliban leader Mullah Baradar. AWK said Pakistan detained Baradar and other Taliban leaders because they were prepared to discuss reintegration with the Karzai government. Senior Taliban fighters in Pakistan may be prepared to reintegrate, he said, but are forced by the Pakistan Government to continue to fight.
Ahmed Wali Karzai: Seeking to Define Himself as U.S. Partner?, U.S. Embassy Kabul, February 2010
If, through a combination of pressure and enticement, Pakistan and the United States can draw sections of the Taliban into peaceful negotiations, while incarcerating those who refuse to participate, it will produce a sweeping change in the war. With enough momentum, such a strategy would also increase the incentives for Pakistan and Taliban elements to betray Al Qaeda’s top leaders. It’s been a while since there has been unadulterated good news out of Pakistan. Today there is.
Baradar: Why Now?, New Yorker, February 2010
Pakistani leaders know that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been seeking reconciliation talks with the Taliban and that Baradar approved contacts between Taliban leaders and Karzai’s brother. An agreement between the Taliban and the Karzai government could deprive Pakistan of influence in next-door Afghanistan. That prospect disturbs Pakistani leaders, who have long tried to maximize their power in Afghanistan to keep it from linking up with Pakistan’s rival, India.
Pakistan’s complicated motives, Boston Globe, February 2010
Dexter Filkins reported Pakistani officials saying what everyone except American officials had been saying since February, in August.
But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had.
Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.
Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest, New York Times, August 2010
Anand Gopal reports on a Taliban split after the arrest.
When Pakistan arrested Baradar in the winter of 2010, reportedly due to unauthorized contacts with the Karzai government, the leadership bifurcated into two networks.[5] Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur, the former civil aviation minister in the Taliban government, heads the first, and the second is under the command of Mullah Zakir, an ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee.[6] Confusion over the chain of command, absent during Baradar’s tenure, now features frequently in dealings between the Karachi- and Quetta-based Taliban leadership and the rank-and-file in Afghanistan.[7]
Serious Leadership Rifts Emerge in Afghan Taliban, Combating Terrorism Center, November 2012
Reporting on the release from arrest focuses on the potential for reconciliation negotiations.
Karzai believes Baradar can be used to help tempt elements of the Taliban to the negotiating table and has spent years calling for his release.
Pakistan releases seven Afghan Taliban fighters, Reuters, September 2013
The Afghan government believes Baradar is more open to dialogue than many of his comrades, but it is not clear whether he would promote peace or war against President Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed government after his release.
Pakistan to free Mullah Baradar this month, Daily Times, September 2013
But there is also a possibility that Mullah Baradar, after release by Pakistan, will just disappear.
“Mullah Baradar must be accessible, secure and with a known address,” said Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for Mr. Karzai. “He must be accessible for peace talks and in the service of the peace process.”
Pakistan to Release Senior Taliban Leader, Wall Street Journal, September 2013