Hibatullah Akhundzada (born 20October 1967) is an Afghan politician and cleric who is serving as the supreme leader of Afghanistan under the Taliban government. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and came to power with its victory over U.S.-backed forces in the 2001–2021 war. A highly reclusive figure, he has almost no digital footprint except for two photographs and several audio recordings of speeches.
Akhundzada is well known for his fatwas on Taliban matters. Unlike many Taliban leaders, Akhundzada does not have any experience in combat, although one of his sons was a suicide bomber. He was an Islamic judge of the Sharia courts of the 1996–2001 Taliban government. He was chosen to lead the Taliban’s shadow court system at the start of the Taliban insurgency, and remained in that post until being elected supreme leader of the Taliban in May 2016. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, backed Akhundzada as the , which strengthened Akhundzada's jihadist reputation among the Taliban's allies. In 2019, Akhundzada appointed Abdul Ghani Baradar to lead peace talks with the U.S., which led to the 2020 signing of the Doha Agreement that cleared the way for the full withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan.
Akhundzada led the Taliban to victory against the Afghan government in a 2021 military offensive—while the U.S. withdrawal was still underway—then became Afghanistan's absolute ruler and imposed a totalitarian Islamist government. His rule has been criticized for sweeping infringements on human rights, including the rights of women and girls to work and pursue education. On his orders, the Taliban administration has prevented most teenage girls from returning to secondary school education. In July 2025, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Akhundzada over the alleged persecution of women in Afghanistan. In October 2026, the ICC unsealed the arrest warrant.
Early and personal life According to Taliban sources, Akhundzada was born on 19 October 1967, in village of Nakhoney in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, then part of the Kingdom of Afghanistan. This information is supported by the International Criminal Court, which states his birth occurred on either 19 or 20 October 1967, in Nakhoney. However, other sources claim that he was born in the nearby village of Sperwan.
According to the then-director of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, Akhundzada was born . However, he is believed to be in his 70s (). A Pashtun, he belongs to the Nurzai tribe. His first name, Hibatullah, means "gift from God" in Arabic. His father, Muhammad Akhund, was a religious scholar and led prayers at the Malook mosque in Safid Rawan village. Not owning any land or orchards of their own, his family of very modest means depended on what the congregation paid his father in cash or in a portion of their crops. One of Akhundzada's sons was a suicide bomber.
The family migrated to Quetta in the Balochistan province of Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979). Akhundzada studied at one of the madrassas in Pakistan and earned the title "Sheikh al-Hadith". In the 1980s, he was "involved in the Islamist resistance" to the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan. According to the Taliban, he fought for Hezb-i Islami Khalis during this time. In the early 1990s, as the Islamist insurgency was gaining ground in Afghanistan following the Soviet occupation, Akhundzada went back to his village in Kandahar Province. Abdul Qayum, a 65-year-old villager, recalled that Akhundzada would have talks with visitors from "the city and from Pakistan." After the United States invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Akhundzada escaped to Pakistan and sought shelter in Quetta. Because of his knowledge in Islamic law, he became the head of the Taliban's shadow justice system and the acclaimed trainer of a whole generation of Taliban militants who graduated through Quetta.
On 16 August 2019, Akhundzada's younger brother, Hafiz Ahmadullah, was killed along with at least three other persons in a bomb blast during Friday prayer at the Khair Ul Madaris mosque in Kuchlak, Quetta, Pakistan. More than 20 people were wounded in the attack, including Akhundzada's son and two nephews. Akhundzada used to teach and lead prayers at the mosque and seminary that was attacked.
Officials of the ousted Afghan government, as well as some Western analysts, believed that Akhundzada was killed along with his brother in the bomb blast in Quetta. "If they [the Taliban] announce Akhundzada is no more and we are looking for a new emir, it will factionalize the Taliban, and the Islamic State – Khorasan Province [the rival extremist group] could take advantage," a regional security source told Agence France-Presse. However, the Taliban denied that Akhundzada had died.
According to a Pakistan-based Taliban member, who said he had met Akhundzada three times until 2020, Akhundzada does not use modern technology, preferring to make phone calls on landlines. He added that Akhundzada communicates with Taliban officials via letters. He reportedly has two wives and has had eleven children, though there has been no official acknowledgement or denial of this. Since coming to power, Akhundzada has ruled from Kandahar. According to the Taliban, he lives in a private rental house in the city, not the Presidential Palace in Kabul.
Role in the Taliban (1994–2021)
Early career He joined the Taliban in 1994, and became one of its early members. After they gained control of Farah Province in 1995, he was part of the vice and virtue police there. Later, he was the head of the Taliban's military court in eastern Nangarhar Province and then the deputy head of the Supreme Court. He later moved to Kandahar where he was an instructor at the Jihadi Madrasa, a seminary that Taliban founding leader Mohammed Omar looked after.
After the Taliban government fell to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Akhundzada became the head of the group's council of religious scholars. He was later appointed as Chief Justice of the Sharia Courts of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and became an advisor to Omar. Rather than a military commander, he has a reputation as a religious leader who was responsible for issuing most of the Taliban's fatwas and settling religious issues among members of the Taliban. Both Omar and Akhtar Mansour, his successor as supreme leader, consulted Akhundzada on matters of fatwa. Akhundzada was a senior member of the Taliban's Quetta Shura.
He was appointed as one of two deputy leaders of the Taliban under Mansour in 2015. He was the most visible face of the Taliban's top leadership, as Mansour mostly stayed out of public view and did not openly attend meetings for security reasons, and the other deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was mostly involved in military affairs. Akhundzada put in place a system under which a commission would be formed under the shadow governor in every province that could investigate abusive commanders or fighters, according to Abdul Bari, a commander in Helmand Province.
Akhundzada was reportedly living in the Ghaus Abad area of Quetta in 2016 and leading up to ten madrassas in Balochistan.
As supreme leader Akhundzada was appointed as Taliban supreme leader on 25 May 2016, succeeding Mansour, who had been killed in a U.S. drone strike. Two leading contenders for the role were Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mansour's other deputy, and Mullah Yaqoob, the son of founding leader Mohammad Omar. Akhundzada's appointment surprised some, who saw him as the third ranked candidate, but a compromise choice to avoid resentment if either of the others was appointed. Taliban sources said that Mansour had designated Akhundzada as his successor in his will. Yaqoob and Haqqani were appointed as Akhundzada's two deputies. Abdul Razaq Akhund and Abdul Sata Akhund pledged their support to Akhundzada in December 2016."Taliban chief reinforces position with backing of two key members". Daily Times. Lahore. 11 December 2016. . Retrieved 22 December 2016
Yousef Ahmadi, the Taliban's main spokesmen for southern Afghanistan, said that Akhundzada's younger son Abdur Rahman Khalid had died carrying out a suicide attack on an Afghan military base in Girishk in Helmand Province in July 2017. Taliban officials said that Akhundzada was aware of his son's intention and approved of it. In 2019, under the leadership of Akhundzada, Taliban won the Battle of Darzab by defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Khorasan branch.
Assassination attempts At least three attempts have been made to assassinate Akhundzada. During a 2012 lecture by Akhundzada, in Quetta, a man stood up among the students and pointed a pistol at Akhundzada from a close range, but the pistol jammed. Mullah Ibrahim, a student of Akhundzada, told The New York Times that "Taliban rushed to tackle" and restrain the attacker, before he could clear the jam; Akhundzada reportedly did not move during the incident, or the chaos that followed. The Taliban accused the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, of the attempted shooting.
During the Friday prayer on 16 August 2019, a powerful blast tore through the Khair Ul Madaris mosque in Kuchlak, Quetta, Pakistan, killing Akhundzada's brother Hafiz Ahmadullah and their father. Ahmadullah had succeeded Akhundzada as leader of the mosque, which had served as the main meeting place of the Quetta Shura after Akhundzada was appointed as the Taliban emir. "It was a timed device planted under the wooden chair of the prayer leader," said Abdul Razzaq Cheema, the Quetta police chief. However, the police did not reveal the identity of the victims. More of Akhundzada's relatives were later confirmed to have died in the blast. The High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate, a breakaway faction of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that the prime target was Akhundzada.
On 18 May 2024, the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) insurgency group released a statement claiming that they carried out an assassination attempt against Azhundzada near the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque in Kabul while he was visiting the city. According to the AFF statement, Azhundzada escaped, while three of his special security guards were killed and one was injured. The AFF also posted a video of what they claimed was the attack on their X social media account. The Taliban did not comment on the report, though it was acknowledged by Afghanistan International that local sources did report an explosion in the first district of Kabul.
Supreme leader of Afghanistan (2021–present)
In May 2021, Akhundzada called for the Afghan people to unite for the development of an Islamic state once the United States forces withdrew. In August 2021, forces under his nominal command began a general offensive seeking to achieve a final victory in the war. During the leadership of Akhundzada, the United States troops withdrew, and the Taliban gained control of Kabul. On 18 August, it was announced that based on the general amnesty issued by Akhundzada, "it was decided to release political detainees from all prisons of Afghanistan". By this time, the Taliban had already taken control of key prisons across the country and freed thousands of inmates, including al-Qaeda members and senior Taliban figures. Allegedly, ISIS-K fighters were also released.
With little known about Akhundzada and a lack of any photographs of him in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul, questions were raised about whether he was alive and remained a leader. Media reports after the fall of Kabul suggested that he was in the custody of the Pakistani Army. However, on 21 August, the Taliban told The Sunday Guardian that Akhundzada was alive and based in Kandahar. On 8 September, Akhundzada issued a statement addressed to the interim government, telling it to uphold Sharia in Afghanistan.