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Afghanistan claims to have killed one of the top Al Qaeda propagandists on an FBI’s most wanted list during an operation in the east of the country.
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan claimed Sunday that it killed a top Al Qaeda propagandist on a FBI’s Most Wanted list during an operation in the east of the country, demonstrating the militant group’s continued presence there as US forces they are working to withdraw from America’s longest war. amid the continual shedding of blood.
The reported death of Husam Abd al-Rauf, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhsin al-Masri, follows weeks of violence, including a suicide bombing, claimed by the Islamic State, on Saturday at an educational center near Kabul that killed 24 people. Meanwhile, the Afghan government continues to fight Taliban militants even as peace talks in Qatar between the two sides take place for the first time.
The violence and reported assassination of al-Rauf threaten face-to-face peace talks and risk plunging this nation beset by decades of war into further instability. It also complicates US efforts to withdraw, 19 years after it led an invasion against the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.
Details about the raid that led to al-Rauf’s alleged death remained unclear, hours after the intelligence service of the Afghanistan National Security Directorate claimed on Twitter that it had killed him in Ghazni province. Al-Qaida did not immediately acknowledge al-Rauf’s alleged death. The FBI, the US military and NATO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Afghan raid occurred last week in Kunsaf, a village in the Andar district of Ghazni province, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of Kabul, two government officials said.
Amanullah Kamrani, deputy director of the Ghazni provincial council, told The Associated Press that Afghan special forces led by the intelligence agency raided Kunsaf, which he described as under the control of the Taliban. On the outskirts of the village, they raided an isolated house and killed seven suspected militants in a shootout, including al-Rauf, Kamrani said.
Neither Kamrani nor the intelligence agency offered details on how the authorities identified al-Rauf, nor how they came to suspect that he was in the village.
Wahidullah Jumazada, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, said Afghan forces killed six suspected militants in the raid, without acknowledging that al-Rauf had been killed.
Kamrani alleged, without providing evidence, that the Taliban had been offering al-Rauf shelter and protection. The Taliban told the AP on Sunday they are investigating the incident, without giving further details.
If the Taliban had provided al-Rauf with protection, that would violate the terms of their Feb. 29 deal with the United States that prompted the Afghan peace talks. That deal made the Taliban agree “not to cooperate with groups or individuals who threaten the security of the United States and its allies,” including al Qaeda.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York filed an arrest warrant for al-Rauf in December 2018, accusing him of providing support to a foreign terrorist organization and being part of a conspiracy to murder American citizens. The FBI put him on the agency’s “Terrorists Most Wanted” list, which now includes 27 others.
The red-haired al-Rauf, believed to have been born in 1958, is an Egyptian citizen. A biography published by Al Qaeda says that he joined the Mujahideen fighters who fought against the Soviet Union in 1986.
He has served for years as al Qaeda’s chief of media, providing audio statements and written articles supporting the militant group. After years of being silent after acknowledging the death of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, al-Rauf resurfaced in 2018 in an audio statement mocking President Donald Trump and those who preceded him in the White House.
“I call him ‘Donald T-Rambo’ who tries to copy the famous American fictional character ‘Rambo’, who, with just one Kalashnikov, was able to liberate all of Afghanistan from the Soviet Union,” al-Rauf said, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, authorities increased the death toll in Saturday’s suicide attack on an educational center near Kabul. The suicide bomber, who was prevented by guards from entering the center, killed 24 and injured 57, many of them young students.
The local affiliate of the Islamic State group took credit for the attack in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood in western Kabul, and said one of its fighters used a suicide bomb vest in the assault.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press journalist Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
