Regarded as brilliant and charismatic, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was the second most powerful figure in the Afghanistan Taliban.

The military commander who is said to have developed the Taliban tactic of planting "flowers" - improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - along roadsides has been described by terrorism experts as even more cunning and dangerous than Taleban supreme leader (his old friend) Mullah Omar.

Mullah Baradar has been credited for rebuilding the Taleban into an effective fighting force and has been running the group’s daily affairs for many years, since Mullah Omar was forced to take a less active role in the organisation due to his failing health.

Besides heading up Taleban military operations and running its budgets, he also ran the group’s leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura, named because its leaders have been thought to be hiding near Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s western province of Baluchistan. A photograph of him has yet to surface.

Born in 1968 in Weetmak, a village in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan Province, the young Mullah Baradar participated in the Afghan Mujahedeen war against the Soviet forces.

It was during this war that he came to know Mullah Omar; the pair fought alongside each other against the Communist forces and some reports suggest the two even married a pair of sisters.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet forces and collapse of the communist regime in Kabul in 1992 , Mullah Baradar and Mullah Omar both settled down in southern Afghanistan district of Maiwand where they ran their own madrassa.

To read full London Times story — Go Here Now.