Editing Taliban (section)

=== Current leadership ===
The top members of the Taliban as an insurgency, as of August 2021, are:<ref>{{cite news |title=Who are the Taliban leaders now controlling Afghanistan? |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-20/who-are-leaders-taliban-afghanistan/100390308 |newspaper=ABC News |publisher=[[ABC News (Australia)]] |access-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210820061541/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-20/who-are-leaders-taliban-afghanistan/100390308 |archive-date=20 August 2021 |date=20 August 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>
*[[Haibatullah Akhundzada]], the Taliban's Supreme Leader since 2016, a religious scholar from Kandahar province.
*[[Abdul Ghani Baradar]], co-founder of the movement alongside Mullah Omar, was deputy Prime Minister as of March 2022.<ref name="Anderson-2-2022" />  From Uruzgan province, he was imprisoned in Pakistan before his release at the request of the United States.
*[[Mullah Yaqoob]], the son of the Taliban's founder Mullah Omar and leader of the group's military operations.
*[[Sirajuddin Haqqani]], leader of the  [[Haqqani network]] is acting interior minister as of February 2022, with authority over police and intelligence services. He oversees the group's financial and military assets between the [[Afghanistan-Pakistan border]]. The U.S. government has a $10 million bounty for his arrest brought on by several terrorist attacks on hotels and the Indian Embassy.<ref name="Anderson-2-2022" />
*[[Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai]], former head of the group's political office in Doha. From Logar province, he holds a university master's degree and trained as a cadet at the Indian Military Academy.
*[[Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai]], chief negotiatior of the group's political office in Doha, replacing Stanikzai in 2020. Heads the Taliban's powerful council of religious scholars.
*[[Suhail Shaheen]], Taliban nominee for Ambassador to the U.N.; former spokesperson of the Taliban's political office in Doha. University educated in Pakistan, he was editor of the English language ''[[Kabul Times]]'' in the 1990s and served as a deputy ambassador to Pakistan at the time.
*[[Zabihullah Mujahid]], the Taliban's spokesperson since 2007. He revealed himself to the public for the first time after the group's capture of Kabul in 2021.

All the top leadership of the Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns, more specifically those belonging of the [[Ghilzai]] confederation.<ref name="USMA">{{Cite web|url = https://www.ctc.usma.edu/tribal-dynamics-of-the-afghanistan-and-pakistan-insurgencies/|title = Tribal Dynamics of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Insurgencies|date = 15 August 2009|access-date = 21 October 2021|archive-date = 21 October 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211021132110/https://www.ctc.usma.edu/tribal-dynamics-of-the-afghanistan-and-pakistan-insurgencies/|url-status = dead}}</ref>