What a total mindblower! A jihadi held captive gets let go, and BOOM! He rejoins his jihadi cohorts! I am completely and utterly shocked! I mean, we DID put B Hussein Obama in the White House, what possible excuse could jihadis have for still hating us??? </sarc>
MULLAH SPRUNG FROM GITMO JAIL NOW LEADS FOE IN AFGHAN CAMPAIGN
KABUL, Afghanistan — As Marine Corps forces roll into southern Afghanistan, they face an enemy familiar to US officials — Mullah Zakir, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who now leads a reconstituted Taliban.
Abdul Qayum Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, is from Helmand Province and has taken a circuitous route to become head of the radical Islamic group.
Zakir was a senior fighter during the Taliban regime in the 1990s. In a memorandum prepared for his administrative review board at Guantanamo, Zakir apparently “felt it would be fine to wage jihad against Americans, Jews, or Israelis if they were invading his country.”
And he acknowledged that he was “called to fight jihad in approximately 1997,” when he joined the Taliban.
In 2001, he surrendered to US and Afghan forces in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif as the regime was collapsing. He spent the next several years in custody, was transferred to Guantanamo around 2006, then to Afghanistan government custody in late 2007, and was eventually released around May 2008. American officials won’t say why he was let go and have not released a photograph of him.
Zakir wasted little time rekindling his relationship with the Taliban, especially its inner shura, or leadership council, based in Pakistan. According to some accounts, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar appointed Zakir as a senior military commander in mid-2008. He quickly developed a reputation as a charismatic leader.
By this time, the Taliban had established a system of shadow-government structures in parts of Afghanistan: provincial governors, military commanders, and mullahs who served on Islamic courts.
Read the whole story.
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- Former Gitmo inmate now Taliban leader
- Taliban’s Top Officer in Southern Afghanistan Is Former Gitmo Detainee
- Good news: Former Gitmo inmate now senior commander leading Taliban resistance in Afghanistan
- Shocker: ANOTHER released GITMO jihadi back in the fight
- Another Taliban Leader Captured in Pakistan
- Gitmo jihadi released by US returned to al Qaeda to wage jihad
- Taliban threaten to murder captured US Soldier if Aafia Siddiqui isn’t released
- BBC Reports that Taliban leader Mullah Omar has been killed
- Al-Qaeda NO. 2 memorializes dead Taliban jihadi
- NATO troops capture another Taliban commander
