“The commander of the believers, Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, made an appearance at a large gathering in the famous Hakimiya madrassa and spoke for ten minutes to the brave soldiers and followers.” This was announced by the Taliban government in an audio recording.
The Taliban “supreme leader”, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, who has never made a public appearance since his appointment in 2016, took part in a Kandahar ceremony last night. In the distributed audio clip, the mullah can be heard reciting prayers and blessings very indistinctly. According to a local source, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada arrived at this Koranic school in Kandahar with a two-car convoy under close surveillance. No one was allowed to take photographs.
After a long period of silence on his travels, the Taliban announced in September that Hibatullah Akhundzada had been living in Kandahar “forever” and would “soon appear in public”. Until he succeeded Mansour, who was killed in an American drone strike in Pakistan in 2016, Akhundzada was relatively unknown, more involved in judicial and religious matters than in military maneuvers. Once in power, Mullah Akhundzada quickly won the loyalty of Egyptian al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who referred to him as “the emir of believers”, thereby strengthening his credibility in the jihadist and Sunni world. In his role as “supreme leader”, Akhundzada is responsible for maintaining unity within the Islamist movement.