Mullah Hedayatullah Badri, also known as Gul Agha Ishaqzai, has served as the Minister of Mines and Petroleum since early July 2024. Prior to assuming this position, he was Governor of the Afghanistan Central Bank (Da Afghanistan Bank) from March 25, 2023.
Earlier, immediately following the Taliban’s takeover, he served as Minister of Finance from September 2021 to March 12, 2023. Accounts of his departure from the finance ministry included speculations about perceived differences with the Taliban's emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada, particularly over the emir's enforcement of a ban on opium cultivation that affected his home region in southern Afghanistan.
A longtime member of the Taliban’s leadership council, Hedayatullah Badri was a close confidante of the Taliban's founding leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and served as his principal finance officer. In the past, he has headed the Taliban's Financial Commission (as of 2013) and was a member of the Taliban council that oversaw the collection of zakat (Islamic tax), operating primarily from the Quetta region of Pakistan. In July 2010, the U.S. Department of the Treasury named Hedayatullah Badri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) for facilitating financing for suicide operations in southern Afghanistan.
Born in Lashkargah, Helmand province, he received his early education in a local madrassa under the guidance of Mullah Omar. He reportedly has four brothers and 15 children. He holds an Afghanistan diplomatic passport D0010408 (issued August 26, 2024, in Kabul; expires August 26, 2029), listing a birth date of July 27, 1976. He is listed under the United Nations Security Council sanctions regime under designation TAi.147.
