Mawlawi Abdul Rasheed Baloch, born in the early 1970s, is a veteran Taliban commander who has been serving as the mayor of Kabul province since October 2021. During the Taliban's insurgency, he was captured by U.S. forces and held for several years at the Bagram detention facility. Upon release, he rejoined the Taliban's ranks and was active in the south/southwestern parts of Afghanistan. He reportedly served as the Taliban's shadow governor in Nimruz province from 2008 to 2012. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, he acted "as the Taliban's liaison to al-Qaeda as of mid-2013 and was responsible for planning meetings between Taliban senior leadership and [al-Qaeda] members in Karachi, Pakistan." Additionally, he provided logistical support to Taliban field commanders in southern Afghanistan and materially and financially facilitated the group's suicide operations by supplying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), mainly through proceeds from illicit narcotics. In mid-2013, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, "Rashid ordered the emplacement of an improvised explosive device (IED) in Nimruz Province which resulted in an explosion that killed one U.S. soldier." In June 2015, the Treasury Department designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).
