New Taliban head of security for Kabul is wanted by U.S. as terrorist

WASHINGTON — The Taliban’s new self-proclaimed chief of security in Kabul is someone who was designated a terrorist by the U.S. government 10 years ago and is subject to a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani told Al Jazeera in an interview published Sunday that the Taliban was working to restore order in Afghanistan.

"If we can defeat superpowers, surely we can provide safety to the Afghan people," he said.

In their push to retake Afghanistan, the Taliban made the security situation much more precarious by breaking prisoners out of prisons — including hardcore fighters housed at Bagram Air Base, Taliban officials acknowledged to NBC News.

Two Taliban leaders said in an interview that their biggest blunder was “releasing thousands of prisoners, among them hardcore Islamic State commanders, master trainers and bomb-makers. They were very trained people, and they are now organizing themselves.”

The Taliban itself was never designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, but the Haqqani network, which has close ties to Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, has long held that distinction.

The Haqqani network, which officials say functions like an organized crime family, has been blamed for the kidnapping of several Americans as part of a wide-ranging kidnap-for-ransom business.

Khalil Haqqani has served as the group's chief of operations, said Doug London, who ran CIA counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan before he retired in 2018. In that role, Haqqani approved suicide bombings against U.S. forces and Afghan civilians, London said. He also was a CIA partner when the agency was arming and training the precursor to the Taliban against the Soviet invasion, London said.

He was designated a terrorist by the U.S. government in 2011. The State Department rewards narrative for Haqqani says he "has also acted on behalf of al-Qaida and has been linked to al-Qaida terrorist operations."

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