Sayyid Muhammad Tayyab Agha ( ps, سید محمد طیب آغا, ''Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭayyab Āghā''; born 1976) is a prominent figure in the Afghan

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

. He was the head of the political wing of the Taliban from 2009 to 2015 and was a close aide to Taliban founder Mohammed Omar. During the Taliban government of the

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

(1996–2001), he served as

chief of staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...

to Omar, as well as his personal secretary, translator, and press spokesman. Agha was born in 1976 in Jelahor village,

Arghandab District Arghandab (Pashto/ fa, ارغنداب) is a district in the central part of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. It borders Panjwai and Khakrez districts to the west, Shah Wali Kot District to the north and east and Kandahar District to the east an ...

Kandahar Province Kandahār ( ps, ; Kandahār, prs, ; ''Qandahār'') is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southern part of the country, sharing a border with Pakistan, to the south. It is surrounded by Helmand in the west, Uruzgan ...

and belongs to a prominent religious family from the

Sayyid ''Sayyid'' (, ; ar, سيد ; ; meaning 'sir', 'Lord', 'Master'; Arabic plural: ; feminine: ; ) is a surname of people descending from the Prophets in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali ...

tribe. He speaks

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Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, in addition to

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...

. In early 2010 Agha met Bernd Mützelburg, Germany's special envoy to Afghanistan, at a location in the Persian Gulf region. In November that year he and two close associates met

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

diplomats and US intelligence officials in Munich. He was concerned he could be arrested en route and interned at

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

, so he was fetched from the Persian Gulf in an airplane of Germany's

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, and

U.S. National Security Council The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House, it is part of the Exe ...

staff avoided telling the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

about the flight. He moved to

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the coun ...

, Qatar, in January 2012 to form the Taliban's political office there. On 3 August 2015, following the delayed acknowledgement of the death of Omar, and the appointment of

Akhtar Mansour Akhtar Mohammad Mansour (1960s21 May 2016) was the second supreme leader of the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. Succeeding the founding leader, Mullah Omar, he was the supreme leader from July 2015 to May ...

as leader of the Taliban, Agha resigned as head of the political office. He questioned the way in which Mansour was appointed, suggesting that it was driven by people who were living outside Afghanistan. He was also critical of Omar's death being kept secret for nearly two years. He said he was stepping down to avoid "expected future disputes". He was succeeded by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a former anti-Soviet fighter and deputy health minister. Agha's opinion on how the Taliban should change its approach was published in October 2016 by

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, who described him as "a key Taliban ideologue". He thought the Taliban should drop the name "

" and call themselves a "movement", as they could not be considered a shadow government when they controlled only rural territory and most of the leadership were living in a foreign country, i.e., Pakistan. Agha called for independence from foreign influence, saying the leadership should leave Pakistan, and calling for the removal of those who were in contact with Pakistani, Iranian or other foreign intelligence services. He also called for restrictions on

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

and other foreign jihadists within Afghanistan, referring to Central Asian jihadists whom the Taliban fought in Zabul in 2015 after they joined

ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

, and how the activities of Al-Qaeda led to the fall of the Taliban regime.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agha, Tayyab Afghan politicians Possibly living people Taliban leaders Year of birth missing (living people)