Qatar sides with the Taliban

Cynthia Farahat:

On October 25, a spokesman for the Taliban announced that Pakistan had released Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar from prison. Baradar, the Taliban co-founder and former deputy to Mullah Mohammed Omar, was arrested by Pakistani authorities in the southern port city of Karachi in 2010.

According to Al Jazeera, Pakistani authorities released Baradar at the request of the State of Qatar. Al Jazeera reported that the "Taliban confirmed that they had held talks with US Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad in Doha, the capital of Qatar." In 2013, the Taliban political office in was set up in Doha at the request of the U.S. to facilitate "peace talks."

Two years after the Taliban office was established in Qatar, the head of al-Qaeda,Ayman el-Zawahiri, gave the bay'a (Islamic oath of allegiance) to Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. Mansour was killed in 2016 by a U.S. drone strike in southwest Pakistan, and following his death, al-Zawahiri renewed his oath of allegiance to the Taliban's current chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada. In Islamic theology, the oath of allegiance is given to a sole leader or caliph, so al-Zawahiri's oath to the Taliban means that al-Qaeda is now officially working under the guidance of the Taliban.

When Baradar was arrested, Bruce O. Riedel, a former CIA officer who led the Obama administration's Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review in 2010, said "his capture could cripple the Taliban's military operations, at least in the short term." Afghani political analyst Habib Hakimi also stated at the time that Baradar's arrest was "a loss for the movement, both militarily and politically," because Baradar "has close ties to political circles and many Islamic movements within the region, especially within the territory of Pakistan."

The question is, why would Ambassador Khalilzad and Qatar mediate the release of one of the most dangerous operatives of the Taliban, a group currently directing al-Qaeda?

The release of Baradar will have dangerous repercussions. Appeasing terrorists has never worked and serves only to bolster their activities. Afghani presidentAshraf Ghani and his Qatari counterparts have long worked to legitimize the Taliban.
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The Taliban is made up of illiterate Islamic religious bigots.  Expecting chage from this group is a fools errand.  They kill girls who get an education.  They kill people who marry for love.  They seek to exterminate everyne who does not follow their weird religious beliefs.  Do not expect them to be appeased by this move.