Who are the Taliban leaders ruling Afghanistan?

Published 19 Aug,2021 via FRANCE 24 - The Taliban stunned the world with the speed of their blitz through Afghanistan and capture of Kabul on August 15. As they surged to victory, the group tried to create an image of themselves as a more moderate “Taliban 2.0” – savvy on social media and keen for good diplomatic relations with other countries. But the profiles of the figures at the top of the Taliban’s hierarchy show their violent past is their violent present. FRANCE 24 looks at Afghanistan’s new rulers.

HIBATULLAH AKHUNDZADA: Supreme Commander

Akhundzada became Supreme Commander of the Taliban in May 2016, after a drone strike killed his predecessor Akhtar Mansour. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri proffered his support when Akhundzada ascended to the role, hailing him as an “emir of the believers”.

Believed to have been born in 1961 in Kandahar, the Taliban’s rural southern heartland, Akhundzada took up arms in the mujahedeen’s resistance to the Soviet Union’s brutal 1979-89 campaign to prop up their puppet communist government.