ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Two senior Taliban figures, who had been detained for over 14 years at Guantanamo Bay returned to Kabul on Monday, February 12th.
According to Abdul Matin Qani, the Taliban spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, Abdul Zahir Saber and Abdul Karim, were released after efforts made by the regime in Kabul.
Abdul Zahir Saber, originally from Hesarak village in eastern Logar province, was arrested by US forces on May 10, 2002. After spending four months in Bagram prison, he was transferred to Guantanamo detention center in October 2002.
Abdul Karim, another Guantanamo prisoner, is originally from the Tani district of southeastern Khost province. He was arrested by the Pakistani government on August 14, 2002, and later handed over to the US forces and was transferred to Guantanamo in early 2003.
They were released from Guantanamo prison on January 16, 2017, and were transferred to the Gulf kingdom of Oman, where they remained under house arrest until their return to Afghanistan.
The video footage shared by the Taliban spokesman on social media shows the returnees being escorted to a VIP area, away from the media and a crowd of supporters, some of whom were holding flowers, gathered for their arrival.
Yesterday, February 11th, Al Arabiya news agency reported that the US and the Taliban have agreed to release an aide of the Al-Qaeda former leader, Osama bin Laden, in exchange for the release of a US citizen, Ryan Corbett, who was detained by the Taliban in August 2022.
According to the news agency, Mohammad Rahim Haqmal Afghani, identified as Bin Laden’s assistant, was arrested in Pakistan in 2007 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2008.
In September 2022, a Taliban financier figure and drug lord, Bashir Noorzai, who was serving a life sentence, was released in exchange for the release of a US citizen, Mark Frerichs, who had been detained by the Taliban prior to the collapse of Afghanistan.
Noorzai, whose heroin empire helped the Taliban’s long war in Afghanistan, was arrested in New York in 2005 on charges of smuggling over $50 million worth of heroin into the United States. US authorities have called him one of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers, comparing him to Colombian cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar.
Two days earlier, on February 10, Foreign Policy reported that Noorzai has now transformed into a prominent dealmaker in Afghanistan’s lucrative minerals industry, entering into business partnerships with China.
According to the media, Noorzai has established “ambiguous joint venture agreements” with Chinese companies in Afghanistan, brokering at least two significant mining and oil contracts, including a $3 billion deal for copper mine and a $500 million agreement for a natural gas project.
Sources from within the mining and security sectors told the media that these contracts generate substantial cash flow for the Taliban without contributing to the country’s development.
The Taliban’s cabinet included at least half a dozen of former Guantanamo detainees in senior positions, including their key interlocutor with the international community, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who leads the regime’s foreign ministry.
