| Honorific-Prefix: | Mullah |
| Obaidullah Akhund | |
| Office: | Second Deputy Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan |
| Term Start: | May 2002 |
| Term End: | February 2007[1] |
| Predecessor: | Office established[2] |
| Successor: | Akhtar Mansour |
| 1Blankname: | Leader |
| 1Namedata: | Mullah Omar |
| Order1: | Defense Minister of Afghanistan |
| Term Start1: | April 1997 |
| Term End1: | September 9, 2001 |
| Birth Date: | c. 1968 |
| Birth Place: | Panjwai, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan |
| Death Place: | Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan |
| Party: | Taliban |
| Allegiance: | Taliban (1994–2010) |
| Serviceyears: | 1994–2010 |
| Rank: | Commander |
| Battles: | Soviet–Afghan War Afghan Civil War War in Afghanistan |
| Occupation: | Politician, Taliban leader |
Mullah Obaidullah the Akhund (Pushto; Pashto: ملا عبيدالله آخوند; – March 5, 2010) was the Defence Minister in the Afghan Taliban government of 1996–2001 and then an insurgent commander during the Taliban insurgency against the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai and the US-led NATO forces. He was captured by Pakistani security forces in 2007 and died of heart disease in a Pakistani prison in 2010.
Obaidullah Akhund was born in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan[3] and was believed to be born in about 1968. He was of the Alakozai tribe.[4]
Obaidullah Akhund became the Defense Minister of Afghanistan in April 1997, and the second of two[5] top deputies to Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban movement. Obaidullah was seen as the "number three" man in the Taliban.[6] In late 2001 or early 2002, Obaidullah surrendered to Afghan Northern Alliance troops near Kandahar and was then released as part of an amnesty.[7]
He was one of the main Taliban military leaders in 2003 and was named to the Rahbari Shura (leadership council).[8] Abdul Latif Hakimi, who was captured by Pakistan in 2005, said that Obaidullah was one of two people with direct access to Mullah Omar and that Obaidullah had personally ordered insurgent attacks, including the killing of a foreign-aid official in March 2005.
Obaidullah was captured by Pakistani security forces in February 2007 in Quetta, Pakistan.[6] [9] He was the most senior Taliban official captured since the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001.[10]
Obaidullah was freed in November 2007 in exchange for the release of more than 200 Pakistani soldiers captured by the Taliban. He was rearrested in February 2008[11] [12] and died on March 5, 2010, of heart disease at a prison in Karachi, Pakistan.[13] [14]