Updated By: Christi Qazi
March 2018
Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil Abdul Ghaffar, was born 1971, is a politician in Afghanistan. He was the last Foreign Minister in the Taliban government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. He was the highest ranking Taliban official to surrender to US forces. He was held by the Americans for 18 months and eventually released in October 2003. The western media has labeled Mutawakil a “moderate Talib”. On May 2, 2005, Mutawakil went on a Pakistan-based pashto TV channel (Khyber TV), and urged the Taliban to reconcile their differences with President Hamid Karzai’s government.
It was reported by the BBC, that on Wednesday, October 8, 2003, that Muttawakil had been released from eighteen months of detention in Bagram. It was reported that he had returned to his family’s home in Kandahar. Muttawakil is reported to have said:
“I’m good, the police provide security for me, some police forces are guarding my house.”
On Monday, July 4, 2005 the BBC reported, that Muttawakil spent the three years after his surrender in US detention and under Afghan house arrest. Following the end of his house arrest Muttawakil took positions at odds with those of the former Taliban regime. He said he no longer opposed female education, so long as it was consistent with Afghan culture. And he said that supporting Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda had brought suffering to Afghanistan. But he still defended some other aspects of the Taliban’s former policies.