Hibatullah Akhundzada facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hibatullah Akhundzada
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هبت الله اخندزاده
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Akhundzada’s 1990 passport photograph, according to Taliban sources
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| Supreme Leader of Afghanistan | |
| Assumed office 15 August 2021 |
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| Prime Minister | Hasan Akhund (acting) |
| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Ashraf Ghani (as President) |
| In exile 25 May 2016 – 15 August 2021 Acting: 21–25 May 2016 |
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| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Akhtar Mansour |
| First Deputy Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | |
| In exile 29 July 2015 – 25 May 2016 |
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| Supreme Leader | Akhtar Mansour |
| Preceded by | Akhtar Mansour |
| Succeeded by | Sirajuddin Haqqani |
| Chief Justice of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | |
| In exile c. 2001 – 25 May 2016 |
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| Supreme Leader | Mullah Omar Akhtar Mansour |
| Preceded by | Noor Mohammad Saqib |
| Succeeded by | Abdul Hakim Haqqani |
| Head of the Eastern Zone Military Court | |
| In office c. 1996 – c. 2001 |
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| Supreme Leader | Mullah Omar |
| Head of the Military Court of Kabul | |
| In office c. 1995 – c. 2001 |
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| Supreme Leader | Mullah Omar |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1959 (age 64–65) or 1960 (age 63–64) or 1961 (age 62–63) Nakhuni, Panjwai District, Kandahar, Kingdom of Afghanistan |
| Residence | Kandahar |
| Ethnicity | Pashtun |
| Tribe | Durrani (Abdali) |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
| Movement | Deobandi |
| Political affiliation | Taliban |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Hezb-i Islami Khalis Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan |
| Branch/service | 1979–1992 1996–2021 |
| Battles/wars | Soviet–Afghan War Afghan Civil War (1996–2001) War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) |
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan cleric who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and came to power with its victory over U.S.-backed forces in the 2001–2021 war. A highly reclusive figure, he has almost no digital footprint except for an unverified photograph and several audio recordings of speeches.
Akhundzada is well known for his fatwas on Taliban matters. Unlike many Taliban leaders, he is not of a militant background. He served as an Islamic judge of the Sharia courts of the 1996–2001 Taliban government. He was chosen to lead the Taliban’s shadow court system at the start of the Taliban insurgency, and remained in that post until being elected supreme leader of the Taliban in May 2016. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, backed Akhundzada as the Amir al-Mu'minin, which strengthened Akhundzada's jihadist reputation among the Taliban's allies. In 2019, Akhundzada appointed Abdul Ghani Baradar to lead peace talks with the U.S., which led to the 2020 signing of the Doha Agreement that cleared the way for the full withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan.
Akhundzada led the Taliban to victory against the Afghan government in a 2021 military offensive—while the U.S. withdrawal was still underway—then became Afghanistan’s absolute ruler and imposed a totalitarian Islamist government. His government has been criticized for sweeping infringements on human rights, including the rights of women and girls to work and education. On his orders, the Taliban administration has prevented most teenage girls from returning to secondary school education.
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Early and personal life
Akhundzada was born in the village of Sperwan in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Kingdom of Afghanistan. According to the then-director of the National Directorate of Security, Akhundzada was born c. 1959. However, he is believed to be in his 70s (as of March 2023[update]). A Pashtun, he belongs to the Nurzai tribe. His first name, Hibatullah, means "gift from God" in Arabic. His father, Muhammad Akhund, was a religious scholar and imam at the Malook mosque in Safid Rawan village. Not owning any land or orchards of their own, the family depended on what the congregation paid his father in cash or in a portion of their crops.
The family migrated to Quetta in the Balochistan province of Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979). Akhundzada studied at one of the madrassas in Pakistan and earned the title "Sheikh al-Hadith". In the 1980s, he was "involved in the Islamist resistance" to the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan. According to the Taliban, he fought for Hezb-i Islami Khalis during this time. In the early 1990s, as the Islamist insurgency was gaining ground in Afghanistan following the Soviet occupation, Akhundzada went back to his village in Kandahar Province. Abdul Qayum, a 65-year-old villager, recalled that Akhundzada would have talks with visitors from "the city and from Pakistan." After the United States invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Akhundzada escaped to Pakistan and sought shelter in Quetta. Because of his knowledge in Islamic law, he became the head of the Taliban's shadow justice system and the acclaimed trainer of a whole generation of Taliban militants who graduated through Quetta.
On 16 August 2019, Akhundzada's younger brother, Hafiz Ahmadullah, was killed along with at least three other persons in a bomb blast during Friday prayer at the Khair Ul Madaris mosque in Kuchlak, Quetta, Pakistan. More than 20 people were wounded in the attack, including Akhundzada's son and two nephews. Akhundzada used to teach and lead prayers at the mosque and seminary that was attacked.
Officials of the ousted Afghan government, as well as some Western analysts, believed that Akhundzada was killed along with his brother in the bomb blast in Quetta. "If they [the Taliban] announce Akhundzada is no more and we are looking for a new emir, it will factionalize the Taliban, and the Islamic State – Khorasan Province [the rival extremist group] could take advantage," a regional security source told Agence France-Presse. However, the Taliban denied that Akhundzada had died.
According to a Pakistan-based Taliban member, who said he had met Akhundzada three times until 2020, Akhundzada does not use modern technology, preferring to make phone calls on landlines. He added that Akhundzada communicates with Taliban officials via letters. He reportedly has two wives and has had eleven children, though there has been no official denial or acknowledgement of this. Since coming to power, Akhundzada has ruled from Kandahar. According to the Taliban, he lives in a private rental house in the city, not the Presidential Palace in Kabul.
Role in the Taliban (1994–2021)
Early career
He joined the Taliban in 1994, and became one of its early members. After they gained control of Farah Province in 1995, he was part of the vice and virtue police there. Later, he was the head of the Taliban's military court in eastern Nangarhar Province and then the deputy head of the Supreme Court. He later moved to Kandahar where he was an instructor at the Jihadi Madrasa, a seminary that Taliban founding leader Mohammed Omar looked after.
After the Taliban government fell to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Akhundzada became the head of the group's council of religious scholars. He was later appointed as Chief Justice of the Sharia Courts of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and became an advisor to Omar. Rather than a military commander, he has a reputation as a religious leader who was responsible for issuing most of the Taliban's fatwas and settling religious issues among members of the Taliban. Both Omar and Akhtar Mansour, his successor as supreme leader, consulted Akhundzada on matters of fatwa. Akhundzada was a senior member of the Taliban's Quetta Shura.
He was appointed as one of two deputy leaders of the Taliban under Mansour in 2015. He was the most visible face of the Taliban's top leadership, as Mansour mostly stayed out of public view and did not openly attend meetings for security reasons, and the other deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was mostly involved in military affairs. Akhundzada put in place a system under which a commission would be formed under the shadow governor in every province that could investigate abusive commanders or fighters, according to Abdul Bari, a commander in Helmand Province.
Akhundzada was reportedly living in the Ghaus Abad area of Quetta in 2016 and leading up to ten madrassas in Balochistan.
As supreme leader
Akhundzada was appointed as Taliban supreme leader on 25 May 2016, succeeding Mansour, who had been killed in a U.S. drone strike. Two leading contenders for the role were Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mansour's other deputy, and Mullah Yaqoob, the son of founding leader Mohammad Omar. Akhundzada's appointment surprised some, who saw him as the third ranked candidate, but a compromise choice to avoid resentment if either of the others was appointed. Taliban sources said that Mansour had designated Akhundzada as his successor in his will. Yaqoob and Haqqani were appointed as Akhundzada's two deputies. Abdul Razaq Akhund and Abdul Sata Akhund pledged their support to Akhundzada in December 2016.
In 2019, under the leadership of Akhundzada, Taliban won the Battle of Darzab by defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Khorasan branch.
Supreme leader of Afghanistan (2021–present)
In May 2021, Akhundzada called the Afghan people to unite for the development of an Islamic state once the United States forces withdraw. In August 2021, forces under his nominal command began a general offensive seeking to achieve a final victory in the war. During the leadership of Akhundzada, the United States troops withdrew, and the Taliban gained control of Kabul. On 18 August, it was announced that based on the general amnesty issued by Akhundzada, "it was decided to release political detainees from all prisons of Afghanistan". By the time, the Taliban has already taken control of key prisons across the country and freed thousands of inmates, including al-Qaeda members and senior Taliban figures. Allegedly, ISIS-K fighters were also released.
With little known about Akhundzada and the lack of any photographs of him in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul, questions were raised whether he was alive and remained leader. Media reports after the fall of Kabul suggested that he was in the custody of the Pakistani Army. However, on 21 August, the Taliban told The Sunday Guardian that Akhundzada was alive and based in Kandahar. On 8 September, Akhundzada issued a statement addressed to the interim government, telling it to uphold sharia in Afghanistan.
On 3 December 2021, Akhundzada issued a decree that stipulated the rights of women under Sharia. It stated that women have a right to marital consent, and cannot be treated as property. It added that widows were allowed to maritally consent to new husbands, payment from her new husband during Nekah, and to inherit property equally among their family. The Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Information and Culture, and the Supreme Court were instructed to implement the decree and communicate it to the public.
On 8 December 2021, Akhundzada issued instructions to provincial governors to convince individuals not to leave the country and try to address their grievances while also increasing security measures.
On 14 March 2022, Akhundzada issued directives consisting of 14 points to the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan concerning the conduct of its personnel.
Through 27 March to 28 March 2022, Akhundzada instructed the Council of Ministers to implement a new round of restrictions. He also ordered a ban on foreign broadcasts from being issued in Afghanistan, and instructed the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to enforce gender segregation of public parks, prevent women from boarding aircraft if unaccompanied by a male chaperone, to bar male civil servants from going to work if they are not wearing a turban or sporting a full beard, and ban the use of mobile phones in universities. He also issued a decree with instructions on the same day to the security forces, ordering them to avoid hiring and deploying minors.
On 3 April 2022, Akhundzada signed a decree banning the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan, with any violators being treated "according to sharia law."
On 29 April 2022, Akhundzada urged the world to recognise the Taliban government in a message ahead of the Eid holidays.
On 7 May 2022, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice published a decree personally approved by Akhundzada, requiring all women in Afghanistan to cover their entire bodies except for their eyes when in public, with the chadaree being the recommended covering.
On 21 July 2022, Akhundzada issued a decree banning criticism or dissension against the Islamic Emirate among the public. It stated that “It is not permissible to make false accusations against officials or to criticize them…”
On 14 November 2022, he issued orders to the judiciary to fully enforce Hudud and Qisas (corporal) punishments if crimes meet such standards.
See also
In Spanish: Haibatulá Ajundzadá para niños
