Mullah Mohammad Fazal Akhund, also known as Mullah Fazl Mazloom, is a seasoned Taliban commander, who presently serves as the First Deputy Minister of National Defense in the Taliban government. He was close to the Taliban’s founding leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and served as the Deputy Chief of Army Staff during the first Taliban regime in the 1990s. In that capacity, he reportedly maintained close operational ties with senior al-Qaeda lieutenants as well as with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist group. After the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Mullah Fazal was captured by Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, a fight in which he lost a leg. He was subsequently handed over to U.S. forces and shipped to Guantanamo detention facility, where he spent 13 years in captivity. In 2014, he was released in a prisoner exchange between the United States and the Taliban, wherein the Taliban released U.S. sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in return for Mullah Fazal and four other senior Taliban members from Guantanamo, commonly known as the "Taliban Five." Upon his release, he was transferred to Qatar, where he served as a member of the Taliban’s political office and its negotiating team in Doha, Qatar. As a senior leader from the southern Taliban, Mullah Fazal has a tense relationship with the leaders of the Haqqani Network. He is listed on the UN's sanctions list under the designation TAi.023.
