Khairullah Khairkhwa

Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa is a Taliban official and former governor of Herat. He is nowheld in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. Press reports have referred to him as "Mullah" and "Maulavi", two different honorifics for referring to senior Muslim clerics.

Early life
American intelligence analysts estimate that Khairkhwa was born in 1967 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He is a Popalzai from Arghestan in Kandahar province. He studied religious topics at the Haqqaniya and Akhora Khattak madrassas in Pakistan, together with other influential Taliban leaders.

He held various government posts, both before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, including a police official in Kabul, and finally, Governor of Herat Province.

Khirullah was one of the original Taliban members who launched the movement in 1994. Some reports have said he had been the Taliban's deputy minister of the interior, interim minister of the interior, the minister of the interior, and the Minister of Information. Khirullah was also to serve as the Taliban's Minister of Foreign Affairs spokesman, giving interviews to the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Voice of America.

Khirullah Khairkhwa arrived at Guantanamo on May 1, 2002, and has been held there for.

In early 2011 president Hamid Karzai demanded his release and Hekmat Karzai, the director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul said "His release will be influential to the peace process," and that "Mr Khairkhwa is well respected amongst the Taliban and was considered a moderate by those who knew him,"

Release negotiations
mirror 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 Khairkhwa and four other senior Taliban, Norullah Noori, Mohammed Fazl, Abdul Haq Wasiq. 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. It was reported that US officials stated the Obama administration had not yet agreed to transfer the five men.