Hibatullah Akhundzada

Biography

Hibatullah Akhundzada was born around 1967 in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, the son of a village prayer leader of modest means; he belongs to the Nurzai Pashtun tribe. After the Soviet invasion his family moved to Quetta in Pakistan, where he studied at a madrasa and earned the title Sheikh al-Hadith, and he took part in the Islamist resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s.

Under the first Taliban government he served as a judge in its sharia courts, heading military courts in Kabul and the eastern zone. After 2001 he led the movement's shadow judiciary during its insurgency and became known for his religious rulings. He was named deputy to the Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour in 2015 and succeeded him as supreme leader in May 2016, with backing from al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Akhundzada appointed Abdul Ghani Baradar to negotiate with the United States, leading to the 2020 Doha agreement and the US withdrawal. Since the Taliban took power in August 2021 he has ruled Afghanistan as supreme leader while remaining highly reclusive. His orders have barred most girls from secondary school and restricted women's work, and in 2025 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him over the persecution of women.