Who is Taliban’s first UAE envoy since its return to power?

BEIRUT, DUBAI — The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan appointed its first ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Wednesday, more than two months after a rare visit by the group's interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani to Abu Dhabi.

The Foreign Ministry in Kabul announced the appointment of Badruddin Haqqani in a press release on its website late on Wednesday.

According to the press release, Saif Abdullah Al-Shamsi, the assistant undersecretary for protocol affairs at the Emirati Foreign Ministry, accepted Haqqani's credentials during a formal ceremony in Abu Dhabi.

Haqqani described relations between the UAE and Afghanistan as “historic” and expressed his appreciation for the ongoing cooperation between the two countries, the statement read.

Shamsi praised the importance of the bilateral relations and said he hoped they will be further strengthened with the appointment of Haqqani, according to the same press release.

The Emirati Foreign Ministry also confirmed the news in a statement.

سلّم المولوي بدر الدين حقاني سفير إمارة أفغانستان الإسلامية لدى الإمارات العربية المتحدة نسخة من أوراق اعتماده إلى وكيل وزارة الخارجية المساعد لمراسم السيد سيف عبد الله الشامسي خلال حفل أقيم اليوم في وزارة خارجية دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة.
ووصف حقاني العلاقات بين أفغانستان.. pic.twitter.com/RaXiRwj0hf

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Afghanistan (@MoFA_Afg) August 21, 2024

After China, the UAE is just the second country to accept a Taliban ambassador since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. 

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after they were toppled by US-led forces. During the chaotic US pullout from Afghanistan — carried out under a US-Taliban deal struck in 2020 in Doha — the Taliban made lightning advances across the country, taking control of the capital Kabul in August 2021 and announcing an interim government. The Western-backed Afghan security forces collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled to the UAE.

The Taliban government is still not officially recognized by any country amid accusations of widespread human rights violations by its forces.

Despite the lack of recognition, several countries continued to host Taliban-appointed diplomats to run Afghan embassies, including Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.

China became the first country to appoint an ambassador to Afghanistan in September 2023. A few months later, in January 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping accepted the credentials of Bilal Karimi, a former Taliban spokesman, as the new Afghan ambassador to Beijing.

Who is Badruddin Haqqani?

The new ambassador to the UAE previously served as the Taliban’s envoy to the oil-rich Gulf country. The Afghan Foreign Ministry appointed him as charge d’affaires to the UAE in October 2023. No further details about him are readily available.

Haqqani is not related to acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads the Haqqani network, a militant group allied with the Taliban. The group is designated as a foreign terrorist group by the United States and sanctioned by the United Nations. The Haqqani network, which first emerged in the 1980s to fight the Soviet occupation, has been behind a series of deadly attacks in the past two decades against government officials and US-led forces.

Sirajuddin, who has a $10 million bounty from the United States over his involvement in terrorist attacks, traveled to the UAE in June of this year, in his first trip abroad since coming to power three years ago. UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan hosted Sirajuddin and discussed ways to boost bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields, as well as support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

UAE-Taliban ties

The UAE previously hosted an ambassador from the Taliban during its first takeover of Afghanistan in 1994. Abu Dhabi has navigated a delicate relationship with the Taliban after five of its diplomats were killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar in 2017. It was the worst attack on UAE diplomats in history and resulted in the death of Juma Mohammed Abdullah al-Kaabi, Abu Dhabi's ambassador to Kabul. 

The attack took place during a diplomatic visit to Kandahar to inaugurate several infrastructure projects, which had UAE backing. The Taliban denied responsibility for the attack, saying at the time it was a result of "internal local rivalry."

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, the UAE has maintained a practical relationship with the Afghan administration.

While it has hosted the ousted president “on humanitarian grounds,” according to the Foreign Ministry, the authorities reportedly banned him from political activities on Emirati soil.

The UAE sent planes to Kabul to facilitate the evacuation of thousands of people and foreigners, including Emirati diplomats, who were stranded in Afghanistan during the Taliban advances in 2021.

In July 2022, the Taliban government and the UAE struck a deal allowing the Abu Dhabi-based firm GAAC Solutions to run the airports in Kabul, Herat and Kandahar.

Later that year, the acting defense minister of the Taliban government, Mullah Yaqoob, met with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed during a visit to Abu Dhabi in December 2022.

According to the head of the Afghan Business Council in the UAE, Haji Obaidullah Sader Khail, the Gulf nation has carried out several infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, building several hospitals, universities, schools and residential buildings across the country in recent years, and projects have continued since the 2021 Taliban takeover.

In an interview with the TOLO news site in October 2023, Sader Khail said the UAE is working with the Taliban-led government to build 200 hospitals in Afghanistan, build roads and water networks, as well as publish [schoolbooks].”

“The UAE could even help us extract Afghanistan's rich mines,” he added, in reference to the country's natural resources. Afghanistan possesses a wealth of mineral and natural resources, such as copper, gold and oil, estimated to be worth more than $1 trillion, according to a 2010 report by US military experts and geologists.

The Emirati budget carrier flydubai announced in October 2023 the resumption of flights to Kabul, becoming the first international airline to operate flights to the Afghan capital since the US withdrawal.

The UAE has also attracted significant volumes of capital flight from Afghanistan over the years, which has been funneled into sectors such as real estate. Afghan-born billionaire Mirwais Azizi is a prominent developer of real estate in Dubai through the Azizi Group, which also owns a large banking network in Afghanistan.