Amir Khan Muttaqi

Amir Khan Muttaqi
امیر خان متقی
Amir Khan Muttaqi; امیر خان متقی
	Muttaqi in 2021
Minister of Foreign Affairs
	Acting
	Assumed office ; 7 September 2021
Prime Minister	Hasan Akhund (acting)
Deputy	Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai (acting)
Supreme Leader	Hibatullah Akhundzada
Preceded by	Haneef Atmar
Member of the Leadership Council
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; 15 August 2021
	In exile; May 2002 – 15 August 2021
Minister of Education and Minister of Information and Culture
	In office; c. 1996 – c. 2001
Leader	Mullah Omar
Succeeded by	Noorullah Munir (2021)
Personal details
Born	26 February 1971 (age 53); Nad Ali, Helmand, Kingdom of Afghanistan
Occupation	Politician, Taliban member
Political affiliation	Taliban

Amir Khan Muttaqi (Pashto: امیر خان متقی [ˈamɪr xɑn mʊtaˈqi]; born 26 February 1971) is an Afghan Taliban militant and politician serving as acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since 7 September 2021.^[2] He was also a member of the negotiation team in the Qatar office.^[3]

Early life and education

Khan was born on 26 February 1971 in a village of the Helmand Province, his family's roots being in the Paktia Province, getting his primary education in a local school and mosque but because of the communist Saur Revolution, he had to move with his family to neighboring Pakistan, where he was enrolled in a refugees’ madrasa and studied subjects such as Arabic grammar, logic, rhetoric, jurisprudence, hadith and Qur’anic exegesis.^[4]

He continued his higher Islamic studies at the Darul Uloom Haqqania, a seminary in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from which many other influential Talibans graduated.^[5]

Political career

He was initially part of Maulvi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi's group during the Afghan jihad but later joined the Taliban movement when it emerged.^[6]

Khan served as Minister of Information and Culture and as a representative of the 1996–2001 Taliban government in United Nations-led talks.^[7]^[8] During that time, a pro-Taliban source says that his "innovative activities" led to "a systematic jihadist publication apparatus against the enemy’s widespread media aggression."^[9]

On 17 August 2021, just after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, he was reported to be in Kabul talking to non-Taliban politicians such as Abdullah Abdullah and Hamid Karzai about forming a government.^[10] Taliban forces took control of Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul on 15 August 2021 during a military offensive against the Afghan government that had begun in May 2021.^{[citation needed]}

On 7 September 2021, the Taliban announced the first members of a new "acting" government, three weeks after coming to full power with the takeover of Kabul on 15 August. Amir Khan Muttaqi was appointed as Afghanistan's acting foreign minister.^[2]

In December 2021, Amir Khan Muttaqi attended a session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Council of foreign ministers as Afghanistan delegate.^[11] The session were attended by delegations from 57 nations with China, Russia, and United States of America as guest delegations.^[12] Amir Khan discussed with Pakistan prime minister, Imran Khan, regarding the threat of ISIS in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.^[13]