Video Allegedly Shows Bin Laden's Security Chief Returning to Afghanistan Hours Before US Troop Exit
09:25 GMT 31.08.2021 (Updated: 19:40 GMT 19.10.2022)
© Photo : Hassan I. Hassan/twitter
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Under the 2020 US-Taliban* peace deal, the militant group pledged that they would not "allow any of its members, other individuals, or groups, including al-Qaeda*, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies".
Amin ul-Haq, a former security chief of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden reportedly reemerged in Afghanistan hours before the completion of the US troop withdrawal from the nation.
A video surfaced on Monday purportedly showing Amin ul-Haq, a top al-Qaeda arms supplier, returning to his hometown in Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province. Neither the Pentagon nor the State Department has commented on the matter yet.
Former Osama bin Laden security aide & AQ arms supplier/facilitator Amin-ul-Haq returns to his hometown after 2 decades on the run, 2 weeks after the Taliban takeover.
— Hassan I. Hassan (@hxhassan) August 30, 2021
Don’t be surprised if al-Qaeda appoints an Afghan as its next leader after Zawahiri.pic.twitter.com/cYUcwBVIl6
In the footage, an SUV carrying what looks like ul-Haq is seen driving through a checkpoint amid a small crowd of apparent admirers.
At one point, the car stops and the top al-Qaeda associate rolls down the window before the men take turns grasping and kissing ul-Haq's hand. The SUV is then seen being followed by a convoy of vehicles carrying armed militants, with some flying the Taliban's flag.
The video emerged after US President Joe Biden argued earlier this month that al-Qaeda is "gone" from Afghanistan. In an apparent sign of contradiction, the president's remarks were followed by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby saying that al-Qaeda's presence in the region isn't "significant enough to merit a threat to our homeland" when compared to the terrorist group's numbers in 2001.
Ul-Haq was a security coordinator for Osama bin Laden's Black Guard in the early 2000s, when the world's most wanted terrorist was occupying the Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanistan.
© AP Photo / RAHIMULLAH YOUSAFZAIIn this Dec. 24, 1998, file photo, al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden speaks to a selected group of reporters in mountains of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.
In this Dec. 24, 1998, file photo, al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden speaks to a selected group of reporters in mountains of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.
© AP Photo / RAHIMULLAH YOUSAFZAI
The two reportedly escaped together when US forces attacked the complex at the time, with Ul-Haq detained in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2008. Three years, later, however, he was released because Pakistani officials allegedly could not prove his ties to al-Qaeda, according to US media outlets.
On 2 May 2011, US Special Forces raided an al-Qaeda compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the world's most infamous terrorist as part of Operation Neptune Spear.
The raid came almost 10 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States, which claimed the lives of at least 2,977 people and injured some 6,000 others. The 9/11 attacks led Washington to declare a war on terror, and to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
*The Taliban and al-Qaeda are terrorist groups banned in Russia and many other countries.