Mohammad Fazl

Mullah Mohammad Fazl is the Taliban's former Deputy Defense Minister, and is being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba after being classified as an enemy combatant by the United States. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 7. He arrived at the Guantanamo detention camps on 11 January 2002, and has been held there for.

Background
Not much is known about Fazl, except that he served as the deputy defense minister under the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban rule). American intelligence analysts estimate that Fazl was born in 1967, in Charchno, Afghanistan. Although he negotiated an amnesty with the Afghan Northern Alliance leader Abdul Rashid Dostum, it is alleged that he is responsible for killing thousands of Shi'a Afghans between 1996 and late 2001.

Held abord the USS Bataan
Former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef described being flown to the United States Navy's amphibious warfare vessel, the USS Bataan (LHD-5), for special interrogation. Zaeef wrote that the cells were located six decks down, were only 1 meter by 2 meters. He wrote that the captives weren't allowed to speak with one another, but that he "eventually saw that Mullahs Fazal, Noori, Burhan, Wasseeq Sahib and Rohani were all among the other prisoners." Historian Andy Worthington, author of the The Guantanamo Files, identified Fazil as one of the men Zaeef recognized.

Release negotiations
Most Afghans had been repatriated to Afghanistan by 2009. Throughout the fall of 2011 and the winter of 2012 the United States conducted peace negotiations with the Taliban, and widely leaked was that a key sticking point was the ongoing detention of Fazl and four other senior Taliban, Norullah Noori, Khirullah Khairkhwa, Abdul Haq Wasiq and. Negotiations hinged around sending the five men directly to Doha, Qatar, where they would be allowed to set up an official office for the Taliban.

In March 2012, it was reported that Ibrahim Spinzada, described as "Karzai's top aide" had spoken with the five men, in Guantanamo, earlier that month, and had secured their agreement to be transferred to Qatar. It was reported that Karzai, who had initially opposed the transfer, now backed the plan.