Mohammad Fazel Mazlum
the Taliban's former Deputy Defense Minister
Mohammad Fazel Mazlum (Pashto: محمدفاضل مظلوم [mʊˈhamad fɑˈzɪl]; born 1967) is a member of the Taliban militant group and the First Deputy Defense Minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, having assumed the role on 7 September 2021. He also served in the position during the previous Taliban government (1996–2001).
He was held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba for 12 years after being classified as an enemy combatant by the United States. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 7. He arrived at the Guantanamo detention camps on 11 January 2002 and was held there until 31 May 2014. He was released, along with the other four members of the so-called Taliban Five—Khairullah Khairkhwa, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Norullah Noori, and Mohammad Nabi Omari—in exchange for the release of United States Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, a convicted deserter who had been held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network.
Early life
American intelligence analysts estimate that Fazl was born in 1967, in Sekzi, Caher Cineh District, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. Fazl belonged to Kakar tribe of Pashtuns. Previously he served as the Deputy Minister of Defense during the 1996–2001 rule of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. He negotiated an amnesty with the Afghan Northern Alliance leader Abdul Rashid Dostum.
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