The US State Department has confirmed Mahmood Habibi, the US citizen with suspected links to the killing of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, is in Taliban’s custody. In an exclusive interview with CNN-News18, Afghanistan’s former First Vice President Amrullah Saleh has hit out at the US saying what he had said a year ago is now turning out to be true that al-Qaeda chief al-Zawahari was killed with the help of an insider from Taliban.
The Taliban, according to the US state department, are currently holding George Glezmann, Mahmood Habibi and Ryan Corbett in their custody. Saleh had told News18 in an exclusive interview last year that the US came to know that Ayman al-Zawahiri was living in Kabul in an area which was home to foreign embassies and diplomats under the previous administration through Habibi.
EXCLUSIVE | Mahmood Habibi, US Citizen With Suspected Links To The Killing Of Al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri, In Taliban Captivity
After the US state department confirmed what he had said, Saleh has sad that the Biden Administration’s engagement with Taliban on counter-terrorism is full of flaws. “It’s not as straight as they are trying to say it is or trying to convince the people it is. So that shows significant weakness of the Biden administration. The disclosure of the identity of Habibi today is a massive slap on the face of Biden administration’s counter-terrorism policy,” Saleh told CNN-News18 from an undisclosed location.
Saleh also said that this shows that the “Taliban is negotiating with US in exchange of prisoners.” “The Taliban are negotiating with the United States for an exchange of prisoners and also they have demanded a very hefty ransom. So the question arises if the United States has been paying $40 to $80 million to the Taliban per week. This is based on the secret annexes of the Doha agreement,” Saleh said.
“Is Taliban a geopolitical tool, a geopolitical instrument for some secret policy, for some secret project in the region? If they are not, then why is the US paying them $80 million a week and in the meantime, the Taliban have the key collaborator against al-Zawahiri in custody. This is complicated and I think this is going to hurt Biden administration for very right reasons,” he added.
Here are edited excerpts from Amrullah Saleh’s exclusive interview with CNN-News18 from an undisclosed location:
Q: Thanks Mr. Saleh for joining us. As we have all been talking from some time and last time also from an undisclosed location you have told us that Habibi is the man who killed Al-Zawahiri. So now the story is in public domain. What is your take on this?
Amrullah Saleh: When I spoke to you last year, I said that the United States was suppressing the details of the al-Zawahiri killing and the whole story because the man who helped the United States get to al-Zawahiri is in the Taliban custody. So the story you put out last year, which in a way the United States is now confirming today, reveals several aspects. Aspect number one, the Taliban to this very date, they deny that al-Zawahiri was killed. So today, it is now publicly acknowledged that he was killed and the man who helped the United States locate him is in their custody. Number two, it also shows that the United States diplomacy in regards to Afghanistan and in regards to an “engagement” with the Taliban on the question of counter-terrorism is full of flaws and it’s not as straight as they are trying to say it is or trying to convince the people it is. So that shows significant weakness of the Biden administration. The disclosure of identity of Habibi today is a massive slap on the face of Biden administration’s counter-terrorism policy. And the third aspect of this story is you see, the Taliban are negotiating with the United States for an exchange of prisoners and also they have demanded a very hefty ransom. So the question arises, the United States has been paying $40 to $80 million to the Taliban per week. This is based on the secret annexes of the Doha agreement. So one has to ask in this situation, what are we seeing? Is the Taliban a geopolitical tool, a geopolitical instrument for some secret policy, for some secret project in the region? If they are not, then why is the US paying them $80 million a week and in the meantime, the Taliban have the key collaborator against al-Zawahiri in custody. This is complicated and I think this is going to hurt Biden administration for very right reasons.
Q: I was in Shirpur area a day before al-Zawahiri was killed. And what I could gather from Shirpur area was that this area is where Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani is staying with full proof security, because multiple barriers were there when we went to meet Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani. This was not at all possible without any specific longitude and latitude to kill al-Zawahiri. Do you think that Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani is also part of this?
Amrullah Saleh: You see, what I am saying is, there is a reward money for Siraj Haqqani, and Siraj appeared more in public after the killing of al-Zawahiri. Is he a collaborator with the CIA? All the circumstantial evidence and logical evidence suggests so, that he’s a collaborator. And otherwise, how come they killed al-Zawahiri, with a million dollars reward in his name, but they spare another guy whose worth is $10 million, according to the US Department of Justice or Department of State. I don’t know. That aspect is not very important. The importance I attach to this whole developing story is the hypocrisy, the betrayal, the backstabbing of the Afghan people, and saying the collapse of the republic was due to corruption etc, whereas we are seeing right now that the US has recruited the Taliban as a secret ally, and this secret ally is fragmented in its ways of engagement with the US. Bits of it is in collaboration with Washington, bits of this group are not fully in the picture, but still the United States is subsidising them with $40 to $80 million a week. That is where I’m fixated on, that what we hear about the Doha agreement, the fact that it was the fault of the Afghan republic, which did not embrace the process as it should have, that is entirely falsehood. It’s wrong. What is becoming clear is that there was secret negotiation involving future collaboration between the United States and the Taliban. It did involve counter-terrorism operations, particularly against groups which threaten the interest of the United States, not the interest of other countries in the region. This is very important. So the US does not necessarily see regional terror groups as a threat to its national security or to its national interest in the region. So that is where I am fixated. But I also want to reiterate that we were right, our sources were right, our access was real. And I want to thank your channel CNN-News18 for giving it the coverage at the time when it happened.
Q: Thank you, sir. And secondly, I just want to put a small question on Pakistan also, that do you think that Pakistan, Afghanistan and America, they are still working together in Afghanistan to kill all these kind of people because Bin Laden was kept there and most of the leaders were not aware and suddenly one fine day, CIA came and they took him down.
Amrullah Saleh: You see, let us call project extremism a project. Radical groups and extremist groups have been pounds in the geopolitical game in the past 30-40 years, to say the least. And Pakistan has been a hub for training, empowering, sponsoring these groups over the past 40 years. And within the society of Pakistan, you see that consensus is faltering. It’s falling apart. There is a segment of the Pakistani society who are saying that this is not going to be a saviour of Pakistan from the massive problems that they are facing. We should get rid of it and Pakistan should become a responsible state. The fallout from a sponsorship of radicalism and terrorism is too high and too costly for the society and for a state in Pakistan. But we do not see this voice being reflected in the views of the deepest state and establishment in Pakistan. They still support extremist groups and they are not attacking them as they should. I have a theory that how al-Qaeda was to be dismantled in a secret collaboration between CIA, ISI, and the Taliban. Is it still holding out? I don’t have fresh information, but I think it is not functioning as it was envisioned to function. Because when al-Zawahiri was killed, then you have this spike of TTP attacks against Pakistan and the United States is not willing to assist Pakistan as the Pakistanis wish. Let’s not forget that yes, the United States betrayed the Afghan people and they backstabbed the Afghan Republic. But they also understand that over 2,400 Americans who were killed in Afghanistan, they were killed by IEDs manufactured with direct assistance from Pakistan Army. So they understand the hypocrisy and the double face of the Pakistan Army and the type of warmth in their relationship, which existed in the 80s and 90s, is not there. We wish revelations like what we see in the media today will bring up one very major and important subject, that terrorism in all form and shape should be bad. We should get rid of the era that there are good terrorists, bad terrorists, al-Zawahiri is bad, but let’s say Lashkar-e-Taiba is good, Taliban is good, but TTP is bad. They are all bad. The colour of blood in every human being’s body is red. So I’m very disgusted with the hypocrisy of Washington, that they think we should engage with Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani and treat him like a minister, while for them, al-Zawahiri was bad, who had killed probably less than 1 per cent the number of people who Siraj-ud-Din has killed over the past 10 years in my country. So I’m not only excited that I was right when I disclosed this story, we are also having at this moment of time, yet another evidence that hypocrisy bites back and it doesn’t run far.
Q: Many congratulations Mr Saleh. Unfortunately, one year down the story, nobody contacted you and me, but now it’s in the all over media. Many thanks for this.
Amrullah Saleh: I mean, let me jokingly tell you, Jesus became Jesus 70 years after he was crucified. So sometimes it takes for the truth to come out late.
Q: Many congratulations, sir. Thank you very much.
Amrullah Saleh: Thank You.
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