Mullah Agha Jan Mu’Tasem: The Taliban’s Chief Strategist after 9/11
Mullah Abdul Wasy Agha Jan Mu’Tasim has emerged as one of the Taliban’s most important leaders since the group fell from power in 2001. One of the group’s founders, he has since become the Taliban’s most important political and military strategist.
Mullah Mu’T asim is the son of Sayed Abdul Sattarandwasbornin 1971 – or perhaps 1968, accounts differ – into a traditional Pashtun family. He was raised in the village of Nalgham in the district of Panjwayee in southern Kandahar where he attended the local madrassas. He has told interviewers that he completed his Islamic education in Pakistan – somewhere in the Tatobi area of Pakistan, he said.
As soon as he was old enough, he enlisted in the jihad against the Soviets. Taliban sources claim that he fought alongside Mullah Omar in the Kandahar region. If these accounts are true, then he must have been fighting for the Harakat- e Enghelab-e Mujahedin, as did Mullah Omar.
In 1994, Agha Jan and Mullah Omar and several other seminary students united under the shared goal of wanting to create a just, Islamic state and founded the Taliban. At the time, the Taliban seemed like a welcome change to their fellow Afghans who would welcome any alternative to the arbitrary and corrupt governance they were experiencing under the mujahideen who had been fighting over the spoils of the country ever since the Soviets pulled out in 1989. Legend has it that Mullah Mu’Tasim was seriously injured three times in battle. Whether these injuries occurred during the jihad against the Soviets or while the Taliban was taking control of Afghanistan, it is not clear.
Prior to the Taliban takeover of the country, Mullah Agha Jan was Mullah Omar’s chief aide among his inner circle and served as the Taliban leader’s closest confidante. When the Taliban captured the Afghan capital in 1996, he was named to the position of minister of finance in the new Islamic Emirate. In late 1990s, after the Taliban had control of ninety percent of the country, Mullah Omar made him chief administrator. In late 2001, after Taliban were ousted from power, Agha Jan and his fellow Taliban disappeared from the national scene for a few years. They were now listed as enemies of what was to become the new democratic state of Afghanistan.
In 2003, however, Agha Jan and his former colleagues began to resurface. They had reconstituted and once again fighting jihad against what they saw as foreign occupiers. In this new version of the Taliban, Agha Jan was named head of the political affairs commission.
In a website interview, Agha Jan described his role. His job, he said, was to oversee the organizatoin’s political strategy to enable them to reclaim their lost territory. As part of his responsibilities, he indicated, he was tasked with establishing the necessary foreign alliances the Taliban would need to combat the American-led foreign forces that were propping up the new government. While he declined to specify who exactly these foreign alliances were, anyone’s first guess would certainly be Pakistan.
The other foreign alliance that would seem to be key to the Taliban, judging from other comments Agha Jan has made, is the group’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. On a number of occasions Agha Jan has called on Saudi Arabia to use its leadership role in the Islamic world to come to the aid of nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine that are currently trying to liberate themselves from foreign occupations. Agha Jan’s enthusiasm for Saudi influence in Afghanistan may, however, have caused him to be relieved of his position as the chair of the Taliban’s political commission. According to an Al Jazeera report in July, Agha Jan was replaced by a relative unknown by the name of Mullah Hafizullah Mansoor after he was caught trying to strike some kind of deal Riyadh was pushing for a peace arrangement between the Taliban and Karzai administration. While no one in the Taliban has corroborated the Al Jazeera report, other reports have suggested that he may indeed no longer be serving the organization in the same capacity as he was. But instead of having of been fired, it would appear that Agha Jan has instead been promoted.
In August 2009, a Taliban source told Kabul Direct on condition of anonymity that Agha Jan had been renamed as the chair of the all-important Quetta Shura. He was said to have replaced Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, who had been moved to head of the Taliban’s military wing. Previously, this position was occupied by Mullah Berader. Whatever Mullah Agha Jan Mu’Tasim’s current role in the Taliban might be, what is clear is that since the organization fell from power in 2001, he has designed most of the group’s political and even military strategy architecture.
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