Mullah Dadullah

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Mullah Dadullah Akhun in an interview in early 2006

Mullah Dadullah (1966? – ) is a Pashtun military leader. He is believed to be the Taliban's current military leader in southern Afghanistan. ^[1] Dadullah lost the use of one leg when fighting with the Mujahideen against Soviet occupation in the 1980s.^[2] He was a member of the Taliban's 10-man leadership council before the US-led invasion in 2001. He was reportedly also a close aide to Mullah Omar. In 1999-2000, he led the brutal suppression of a revolt by Afghan Hazaras in Bamyan province.^[3]

When the Taliban regime fell in December 2001, Dadullah escaped capture by Northern Alliance forces in Kunduz province.^[2]

He allegedly participated (by giving orders via cell phone) in the murder of Ricardo Munguia on March 27, 2003.

In 2005 he was sentenced to life in prison in absentia, along with three others, by Pakistan for the attempted murder of a member of Pakistan's parliament, Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party. Sherani, an opponent of the Taliban, survived the IED attack in his home constituency of Balochistan in November, 2004. ^[4]

A "Western intelligence source" claims Dadullah may be operating out of Quetta, Pakistan ^[5]. Others, including the Pakistani government, claim he is operating near Kandahar, Afghanistan. In 2006, he claimed to have 12,000 men and control 20 districts in the former Taliban heartland in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan. ^[6]

Dadullah has reportedly been a central figure in the recruitment of Pakistani nationals to the Taliban ^[3] and is also one of the main Taliban spokesmen, frequently meeting with Al-Jazeera television reporters ^[7]. Reports that Dadulluh was captured on the 19th of May, 2006 have been discredited, and no further reports of his capture have been made. In the summer of 2006, he was reportedly sent by Mullah Omar to South Waziristan to convince local Pashtun insurgents to agree to a truce with Pakistan.^[8]

In October 2006 it was rumored ^[9] that the Afghan government is considering giving control of its defense ministry over to Dadullah as part of a reconciliation plan with the Taliban to stop the ongoing insurgency.

He has been linked to massacres of Shi'a, the scorched earth policy of Shi'a villages in 2001 (which he boasted about once on the radio), the summary execution of men suspected of throwing hand grenades into his compound in 2001 (they were hanged at one of the main roundabouts).

Dadullah oversaw Taliban negotiations for the hostage-taking of Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo and his two Afghani assistants in March 2007. Mastrogiacomo was reportedly exchanged for five senior Taliban leaders, including Ustad Yasar, Abdul Latif Hakimi, Mansoor Ahmad, a brother of Dadullah, and two commanders identified as Hamdullah and Abdul Ghaffar. The Taliban leader threatened to kill the interpreter Adjmal Nasqhbandi, one of the two Afghani assistants, on March 29, 2007 unless the Kabul government freed two Taliban prisoners.^[10]