The Taliban refrained from celebrating the return of their deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to Afghanistan as a triumphant media event.

On Wednesday there was initially only a shaky video of his arrival at Kandahar airport.

The military aircraft that brought him to Afghanistan bore the lettering of the Air Force of the Gulf State of Qatar.

Mullah Baradar had headed the Taliban's political office in the capital Doha since 2019 and held talks with diplomats from all over the world.

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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In the video, which was broadcast by the Pakistani news channel Bol, it can be seen that shortly after sunset, presumably only a small reception committee made up of a few dozen men wearing the local turbans appeared at the airport on Tuesday evening.

The plane was secured by soldiers believed to be part of the Qatari military.

The Taliban only confirmed the arrival of their deputy leader in a brief message on Tuesday evening.

"That afternoon a high-ranking delegation from the Islamic Emirates, led by Mullah Baradar, landed at Kandahar airport in their beloved homeland," wrote Taliban spokesman Muhammad Naeem Wardak on Twitter.

Later it was said that the leadership group would soon reveal itself to the world public, "without a shadow of secrecy".

Mullah Baradar was expected to arrive in the capital Kabul on Wednesday or Thursday.

Reception in Kandahar as “humility before God”?

It could be the first time he stepped on Afghan soil since the fall of the Taliban regime twenty years ago. Presumably, the Taliban leader chose Kandahar as the destination because the city is the founding place and the spiritual center of the Taliban movement. Mullah Baradar, whose real name is Abdul Ghani, was one of its founders in 1994. He certainly also wanted to avoid symbolic images that show him getting out of a Qatari plane. The Islamists are very careful to be seen as an Afghan movement and not as a stooge of foreign powers.

Perhaps the modest reception should also convey the "humility before God" that Mullah Baradar ordered his fighters, many of whom are probably in a rush of victory. At any rate, for obvious reasons, Kabul Airport, whose air traffic control is under the control of the American military, did not appear to the Taliban to be the right place for the return home of the man who will presumably be the political leader of the new regime. His return suggested that talks in Kabul on the shape of the future government are about to be concluded.

Mullah Baradar is not, at least officially, the Supreme Leader of the Taliban.

This is Maulawi Haibatullah Akhundzada.

So far, he has headed the so-called Leadership Council from Pakistan, which provided political and military guidelines and appointed the shadow governors and commanders.

Akhundzada, unlike Baradar, does not appear publicly and is described more as a spiritual leader.

One of his deputies, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is also the leader of the Haqqani network, which had close ties to Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani secret service for years.

His brother Anas Haqqani met former President Hamid Karzai and the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, in Kabul on Wednesday.

Baradar is said to have helped Mullah Omar escape

The Taliban circulated a photo of the meeting. Initially, nothing was known about the content of the talks. A Taliban representative told the German press agency that it was too early to say whether the Taliban would include members of other political groups in their government. One can assume with certainty that the Taliban will not recognize the current constitution and will not stand for elections.