Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi, a seasoned Taliban commander, has held the position of Governor of Bamyan province since November 2021. His checkered history is marred by a brutal tenure as a regional military commander for the Hazarajat region during the first Taliban rule in the 1990s. He is reportedly responsible for overseeing the destruction of the sixth-century Buddha statues in Bamyan in March 2001. Disturbing reports, including those from Amnesty International, link Sarhadi to heinous acts against the ethnic Hazara population, notably the 2001 massacre that claimed the lives of over 300 local civilians, including women and children.
In 2001, Abdullah Sarhadi was captured in Kunduz province by militiamen loyal to the Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum. He was kept within an airless shipping container alongside hundreds of other Taliban and foreign fighters, many of whom perished from asphyxiation. Remarkably, Sarhadi survived by breathing through the bullet holes in the container. Subsequently, he was handed over to U.S. forces and spent four years at the Guantanamo detention facility in Cuba. After his release in 2012, Sarhadi returned to the battlefield and operated in various provinces, including Wardak, where he reportedly lost an eye in a firefight near Kabul. He was later recaptured and spent eight more years in prison—this time in Pakistan. Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi was a close associate of the late Taliban emir, Mawlawi Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor.
