During his Sept. 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Trump briefly mentioned a Taliban leader he negotiated with named Abdul.
As part of a response to a question about his handling of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Trump referred to Abdul as “the head of the Taliban.” Trump then added: “And I told Abdul don’t do it anymore, you do it anymore you’re going to have problems. And he said why do you send me a picture of my house? I said you’re going to have to figure that out, Abdul.”
The opaque reference to a one-named Taliban leader puzzled observers in the U.S., while in Afghanistan it led to a wave of humorous comments and memes on social media.
In a country where Abdul is a commonplace and generic name, many Afghans lightheartedly speculated about the real identity of the man who Trump name-checked, and whether they could reach out to this enigmatic Abdul for help with their own problems, including the closure of girls’ secondary schools in the country.
Many online observers in the U.S., referring to rumors of Trump’s senility, suggested that he may have been describing a figment of his imagination.
Despite Trump’s muddled phrasing, the Taliban leader he referred to is indeed a real person. His full name is Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. But the story seems to have been embellished by the former president and current presidential candidate.
Mullah Baradar, as he is most commonly known, was born in 1963 in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, where he grew up and became close friends with the founder of the Taliban, Mullah Omar.
Mullah Baradar’s surname, which means brother, was affectionately given to him by Mullah Omar. Mullah Baradar was educated in various madrasas in the south and, as a young man, fought alongside Mullah Omar against the Soviets in the 1980s. After the latter’s defeat, the two companions would work together to establish the Taliban movement, which today has once again taken power in the country after a long war to eject the U.S. and its Afghan allies.
Mullah Baradar played a critical role in the Taliban during this two-decade-long struggle. He served as the Taliban’s deputy defense minister during the war, and was later appointed deputy to Mullah Omar, then the Taliban’s supreme leader.
The esteemed role came with a heavy price. In 2010, American and Pakistani special forces arrested Mullah Baradar in Karachi.
He spent nearly nine years in prison until the U.S. pushed for his release. Viewed as a conciliatory figure with credibility, Mullah Baradar became a chief negotiator for the Taliban in their talks with the U.S. over the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
And this is where Trump’s debate story presumably begins. Trump and Mullah Baradar reportedly shared indirect communications during the negotiations. Trump even invited the Taliban leadership to Camp David, though that meeting failed to materialize.
Two years of talks finally produced a peace agreement that was signed in Doha in 2020, gradually drawing the U.S. military presence in the country to a close. The point man on the U.S. side for the talks, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was photographed several times, visibly unhappy, standing alongside Mullah Baradar before their official meetings.
On March 3, 2020, a few days after the Doha Agreement was signed, Trump spoke directly to Mullah Baradar by phone. In a conversation that reportedly lasted for 30 minutes, the two men discussed a number of issues, including the outcome of the peace talks, a timeline for withdrawal, the ongoing cease-fire between U.S. troops and the Taliban and the political future of Afghanistan.
In that conversation, Trump also assured Mullah Baradar that Pompeo would soon visit Kabul to discuss the implementation of the new accord with the Afghan president at the time, Ashraf Ghani.
It would later turn out that many details of the agreement between the Taliban and the U.S. were concealed from both the Afghan and American publics. In Doha, the major terms on the agenda were the NATO withdrawal, ongoing counterterrorism efforts in the country and the future political relationship between the Taliban and other Afghan stakeholders who would remain in the country once foreign troops left.
While the sides came to a general agreement on the first two points, fatefully for Afghans, they made little headway on the last. Critics also said Washington signed away women’s rights, not including them in its security-focused demands of the Taliban. That failure would give rise to Afghanistan’s present unhappy condition, with the Taliban once again calling the shots.
Today in Afghanistan, Mullah Baradar is recognized as a key figure in the country’s reconstruction, frequently attending ceremonies for projects run by the regime. Following the announcement of the country’s new cabinet, he was appointed as the first deputy prime minister and head of the Taliban’s Economic Commission.
When Trump brought up his conversations with Mullah Baradar during the debate, the Taliban immediately recognized the “Abdul” to whom the former president was referring, and they were not amused.
Most irritating to the group was the implication that Trump had threatened the Afghan leader during talks, and had even hinted at attacking his home.
Abdullah Azzam, the general chief of staff for Mullah Baradar, confirmed to New Lines that the phone conversation with Trump did take place.
“The phone conversation between Mullah Sahib [Baradar, as he is known locally] and Trump did take place,” he said. “We have a record of it and will release it at the appropriate time to reveal the truth.”
Despite being irked by Trump’s statements, the Taliban and Mullah Baradar have bigger affairs on their agenda.
Chief among their concerns today is a cross-country gas pipeline project known as TAPI, or the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline.
Long delayed due to security and political instability, the pipeline has recently resumed construction work in Afghanistan under the Taliban administration.
The project aims to transport more than 40 billion cubic yards of natural gas annually from Turkmenistan to South Asia, passing through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The Afghan portion of the pipeline spans over 500 miles, and the Taliban government stands to earn about $450 to $500 million annually in transit fees.
This month, the Taliban officially launched the Afghan section of the project in Herat Province. The date they chose: Sept. 11.
Having restored their rule, they were aiming to send a message to the world that their focus was on reconstruction and fostering regional cooperation. As Shafi Azam, an official in the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, “September 11 was a hindrance, and the severed thread was reconnected from the same place.”
In this recovery, Mullah Baradar, or Abdul, as Trump remembers him, has continued to play a quiet but steady role. Though the Taliban still face deep challenges, including forcing their harsh writ on a population that has changed much since they were last in power, they now have the upper hand.
And this turn of fortune was cemented years ago, when Trump and Mullah Baradar first began the correspondence that would end with the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban’s triumphant march on Kabul and the inauguration of their new regime.
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