Mohammad Yaqoob

Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob or Mullah Yaqoob (Arabic/Pashto: ملا محمد يعقوب) is the eldest son of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Afghan mujahideen commander, founder of the Taliban and the former Emir (Supreme Leader) of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. He was born in 1990.

Mullah Yaqoob is an ethnic Pashtun of the Hotak tribe, which is part of the larger Ghilzai branch. He got his religious education in different seminaries of Karachi in Pakistan. When his father died in April 2013 and rumors escalated that he had been assassinated by rival Akhtar Mansour, Yaqoob denied that his father had been killed, insisting that he had died of natural causes. But Mullah Yaqoob reportedly refused to support the leadership of Taliban's chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor when the latter was elected as leader of the Taliban organization on 29 July 2015. He was unwilling to accept himself a top position in the group.

In 2016, Mullah Yaqoob was assigned by the Taliban to be in charge of the military commission in 15 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. The military commission headed by Mullah Ibrahim Sadr is responsible for overseeing all military affairs of the Taliban. In addition, Mullah Yaqoob was included in the Taliban's top decision-making council, the Rehbari Shura.

After the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor announced on 21 May 2016 and his replacement by Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada as new Taliban leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, a deputy to Mansoor and leader of the Haqqani network retained his position as Taliban deputy leader to Akhundzada, while Mullah Yaqoob, was newly appointed as a second deputy to the new Taliban chief.

On 7 May 2020 he was appointed head of the Taliban military commission, making him the insurgents' military chief. On 29 May 2020, influential senior Taliban commander Mualana Muhammad Ali Jan Ahmed told Foreign Policy that Mullah Yaqoob became the acting leader to the entire Taliban after Akhundzada became infected with COVID-19, stating "Our hero, the son of our great leader, Mullah Yaqoob, is running the entire Taliban operation in Haibatullah's absence."