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Abdul Ghani Baradar made a triumphant return to Kandahar on Tuesday, as a delegation of top Taliban officials arrived to take power in Afghanistan.
Pictures shared on Taliban social media accounts showed crowds waving the insurgent group's white flag as they waited for Mr Baradar in the country’s second-biggest city, with fireworks being lit to celebrate his return.
One of the most senior members of the Afghan Taliban, Mr Baradar is being tipped as the likely co-leader of the next government, alongside former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.
A veteran military commander, Mr Baradar helped found the Taliban and was one of its late leader Mullah Omar's most trusted commanders.
According to Washington, he was the Taliban's number two and ran the group's insurgency in Afghanistan until he was captured in 2010 by security forces in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.
Born in Uruzgan province in 1968, Mr Baradar fought alongside Mullah Omar against the Soviets. He is not known to speak English and does not speak to the media outside of official statements.
After the Russians were driven out in 1989 and the country fell into a civil war fought by rival warlords, Mr Baradar set up a madrassa in Kandahar with Mullah Omar.
It was there that the two men, along with a handful of others, established the Taliban movement.
Mr Baradar remained at the centre of the movement from its earliest days in the mid-1990s.
He was believed to be the architect of the movement's victories when they swept and took over the country in 1996.
He was described as the operational leader of the organisation, heading its leadership council and taking day-to-day control with occasional instruction from the elusive Mullah Omar, who was the movement's spiritual figurehead.
Mr Baradar was thought to be the deputy minister of defence at the time the Taliban were ousted by the US and its Afghan allies in 2001.
He was placed under UN Security Council sanctions, which included the freezing of his assets, a travel ban and an arms embargo.
Mr Baradar's release in late 2018 came after US special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, reportedly held his first meeting with the Taliban in Doha.
It is believed that Mr Baradar, along with a small group of insurgents, approached former interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai in 2001 with a letter outlining a potential deal that would have involved the militants recognising the new administration.
He headed the political office of the Taliban and was part of a negotiating team in Qatar that attempted to create a political deal to pave the way for a ceasefire and peace in the country.
Mr Baradar oversaw the signing of the agreement with Washington that paved the way for the withdrawal of US and coalition troops from Afghanistan.
Representatives of the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents met on and off for months in the Qatari capital, but the talks lost momentum as the insurgents made battlefield gains.
UAE tour of the Netherlands
UAE squad: Rohan Mustafa (captain), Shaiman Anwar, Ghulam Shabber, Mohammed Qasim, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Mohammed Naveed, Amjad Javed, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Fixtures and results:
Monday, UAE won by three wickets
Wednesday, 2nd 50-over match
Thursday, 3rd 50-over match
How to donate
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
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Basquiat in Abu Dhabi
One of Basquiat’s paintings, the vibrant Cabra (1981–82), now hangs in Louvre Abu Dhabi temporarily, on loan from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
The latter museum is not open physically, but has assembled a collection and puts together a series of events called Talking Art, such as this discussion, moderated by writer Chaedria LaBouvier.
It's something of a Basquiat season in Abu Dhabi at the moment. Last week, The Radiant Child, a documentary on Basquiat was shown at Manarat Al Saadiyat, and tonight (April 18) the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is throwing the re-creation of a party tonight, of the legendary Canal Zone party thrown in 1979, which epitomised the collaborative scene of the time. It was at Canal Zone that Basquiat met prominent members of the art world and moved from unknown graffiti artist into someone in the spotlight.
“We’ve invited local resident arists, we’ll have spray cans at the ready,” says curator Maisa Al Qassemi of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi's Canal Zone Remix is at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Thursday April 18, from 8pm. Free entry to all. Basquiat's Cabra is on view at Louvre Abu Dhabi until October
Retail gloom
Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
