Ауған саяхатшысы Уәкіл Ахмет Муттавакіл Абдул Ғаффар

Afghan politician

Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil Abdul Ghaffar (born 1971) is an Afghan politician. He was the last Foreign Minister in the Taliban government of the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 2001. Prior to this, he served as spokesman and secretary to Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban. After the Northern Alliance, accompanied by U. S. and British forces, ousted the regime, Muttawakil surrendered in Kandahar to government troops. In 2005, he announced that he would be a candidate in the elections for the House of the People.

Muttawakil is originally from Keshkinakhud in Maywand District, Kandahar Province. He is not known for being a mujahed in the 1980s Soviet invasion, but his father, Abdul Ghafar Barialai, is an extremely famous Pashto poet in southern Afghanistan and was killed during Taraki's rule. He belongs to the Kakar tribe.

In the early period of the Taliban movement, Muttawakil, who had been a madrasa student under Mohammed Omar, served as Omar's companion, driver, food taster, translator and secretary. He progressed to being his official spokesman, communicating with the press, foreign diplomats and aid agencies. He was appointed foreign minister on 27 October 1999, replacing Mohammad Hasan Akhund, and remained in that position until the Taliban were deposed in late 2001. According to the BBC, in July 2001 Muttawakil was told by Tohir Yo'ldosh, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, that al Qaeda was planning to launch a huge attack within the United States. Muttawakil was worried that this would lead to the American military retaliating against Afghanistan. He sent an envoy to meet a US diplomat in Peshawar, Pakistan, to warn of the plan and to urge the US to launch a military attack on al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but US officials were skeptical about the information. The aide also warned United Nations officials. Al Qaeda used hijacked airliners to attack the United States on September 11, 2001.

In October 2001, the month following al Qaeda's attacks in the USA, Muttawakil was reported to be in Pakistan. According to the BBC some rumors said he was trying to negotiate an end to the American aerial bombardment of Afghanistan; that he was suggesting the Taliban hand over Bin Laden. Muttawakil was reported to have had a 90 minute meeting with Lieutenant General Ehsan ul Haq, the head of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate. He was rumored to have asked General Haq to lobby United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, that an American ceasefire would allow moderate elements within the Taliban, like Muttawakil, to push Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to abandon Bin Laden. On October 15, 2001, it was reported that Muttawakil had arrived in the United Arab Emirates in order to defect from the Taliban. Abdullah Abdullah, the minister who held the same portfolio in Hamid Karzai's Afghan Transitional Authority as Muttawakil had held under the Taliban, stated that Muttawakil should stand trial for war crimes.

On October 21, 2003, the Taliban disowned Muttawakil. The BBC was told by a Taliban spokesman that Muttawakil "does not represent our will". In 2003, Muttawakil's location and status was a matter for speculation. W. A. Muttawakil's brother Maulvi Jalil Ahmed was for six years a Muslim cleric in the city of Quetta, Pakistan. He was killed in a shooting incident in Quetta in July 2005. The article goes on to state that the new home Karzai's government has provided Zaeef is around the corner from Muttawakil's. Der Spiegel described Zaeef's home as being guarded, inside and out, by a heavily armed security detail. Like Muttawakil, Zaeef is regarded as one of the more moderate former members of the Taliban.

During Ramadan in 2008, there were rumors that Saudi King Abdullah was attempting to broker peace talks between the warring parties from Afghanistan. Zaeef denied this meeting should be characterized as "peace talks". He stated that none of the individuals at this meeting had been authorized to conduct negotiations. Zaeef denied anyone discussed Afghanistan at this meeting.

In 1999, the UN Security Council established a sanctions regime to cover individuals and entities associated with Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban. Since the US Invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the sanctions were applied to individuals and organizations in all parts of the world, also targeting former members of the Taliban government. Muttawakil was added to this list in 2001. On January 27, 2010, a United Nations sanctions committee removed him and four other former senior Taliban officials from this list, in a move favoured by Afghan President Karzai. The decision means he and the four others would no longer be subject to an international travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo.