News is coming from the Afghan media about one of the two Taliban leaders – Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar – who had mysteriously disappeared from the public scene in recent days. Taliban cofounder Baradar was reportedly injured last week in a dispute with members of the Haqqani network in the presidential palace in Kabul and is reportedly hospitalized in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. This was reported by a member of his family to the Pashtun Times media.
Baradar – a key figure in the negotiations with the US that led to the Doha agreement last year, indicated by the Taliban as the number two of their ‘government’ – “is under Pakistani protection and no one is allowed to see him,” the source said. According to the BBC, Baradar had a heated exchange with Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani, chosen as refugee minister and a leading figure in the Haqqani network. For some days there has been no definite news of the deputy prime minister.