Qari Ziaur Rahman is a citizen of Afghanistan who is reported to be a leader of the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's leadership. [1] [2] He was believed to have been killed in March 2011 during an attack on militants by the Pakistani military, however Ziaur Rahman later phoned media reporters to confirm that he survived the airstrike. [3]
Qari's father, Ahengar Dilbar, was a blacksmith. [2] Qari Ziaur Rahman reports being from Konar Province. He reports that he memorized the entire Quran while a youth.
According to a profile in the Asia Times , he grew up surrounded by Arab foreign fighters during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. [2] According to the Asia Times he is in his thirties.
Asia Times reports that Qari Ziaur Rahman is a leader in the insurgency's efforts in Konar, and that the United States has offered $350,000 bounty for information leading to his death or capture. [4] As is often the case, Taliban exaggerate claims of monetary rewards, proposing inflated figures as propaganda to build credibility among insurgency personnel.
Qari Ziaur Rahman was captured in Pakistan by operatives of CIA & ISI. But he was not transferred to US custody. Instead he was part of a prisoner exchange for Pakistani military officials. [4]
Bill Roggio, writing in the Long War Journal , reported that he was rumored to have been killed in mid-June 2009. [5] Two weeks later Roggio reported the Pakistan had offered a series of bounties. [6] He reported they offered the equivalent of US$615,000 for Baitullah Mehsud. He reported that for Qari Zaur Rahman they only offered the equivalent of $65,100.
Afghan forces reported that Rahman was killed in a coalition drone strike on 21 August 2013. [7] He was reported attending a meeting with three other local insurgents, who were killed, in the Marawara district of Kunar. Reports of Rahman's death were proven false when he was interviewed by NBC News in May 2014. [8]
Tohir Yo'ldosh (Yunusov Umid), born Tohir Abdulhalilovich Yuldashev (Russian: Тахир Абдулхалилович Юлдашев (Yunusov Umid)), (2 October 1967 – 1 October 2009) was an Uzbek Islamist militant who cofounded the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Islamist organization active in Central Asia, with Juma Namangani in August 1998. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency he was a key leader opposing US forces during Operation Anaconda. The United Nations considers the IMU an Islamic terrorist organization.
Baitullah Mehsud was one of the founders and a leading member of the TTP in Waziristan, Pakistan, and the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He formed the TTP from an alliance of about five militant groups in December 2007. He is thought by U.S. military analysts to have commanded up to 5,000 fighters and to have been behind numerous attacks in Pakistan including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto which he and others have denied.
Jalaluddin Haqqani was an Afghan insurgent commander who founded the Haqqani network, an insurgent group fighting in guerilla warfare against US-led NATO forces and the now former government of Afghanistan they support.
Syed Saleem Shahzad was a Pakistani investigative journalist who wrote widely for leading European and Asian media. He served as the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online and Italian news agency Adnkronos (AKI).
Maulvi Faqir Mohammed is an Islamist militant and, until March 2012, a deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. He was reported as killed on 5 March 2010 during a helicopter gunship attack on militants by the Pakistani military although he denied the reports as false. In July 2011, he resurfaced on the air broadcasting radio shows out of Afghanistan. He was captured in Afghanistan on 17 February 2013, and released by the Afghan Taliban in 2021.
Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid, better known as Saeed al-Masri or simply al-Masri, was an Egyptian who was alleged to have acted as the financial chief for al-Qaeda. Along with Mahfouz Ould al-Walid and Saif al-Adel, al-Masri was believed to have opposed the September 11 attacks two months prior to their execution. He was killed in a targeted killing drone airstrike in Pakistan on May 21, 2010.
The following items form a partial timeline of the War in Afghanistan. For events prior to October 7, 2001, see 2001 in Afghanistan.
The Mujahideen Shura was a council set up by jihadist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan, Pakistan. Members were said to include Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Maulana Sadiq Noor, Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Afghan Taliban, and Tahir Yuldashev, commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Qari Hussain Ahmad Mehsud was a top lieutenant in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the organizer of the group's suicide bombing squads. He was a cousin of Hakimullah Mehsud.
FDD's Long War Journal (LWJ) is an American news website, also described as a blog, which reports on the War on terror. The site is operated by Public Multimedia Incorporated (PMI), a non-profit media organization established in 2007. PMI is run by Paul Hanusz and Bill Roggio. Roggio is the managing editor of the journal and Thomas Joscelyn is senior editor. The site is a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where both Roggio and Joscelyn are senior fellows.
Bill Roggio is an American commentator on military affairs, and the managing editor of The Long War Journal. Prior to leading a team of online commentators, Roggio published the online weblog The Fourth Rail. Roggio was an active duty soldier in the United States Army in the 1990s.
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan government in the 21st century. It is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United Nations. It is considered to be a "semi-autonomous" offshoot of the Taliban. It has been most active in eastern Afghanistan and across the border in north-west Pakistan.
Mullah Abdul Bari was alleged to be a Taliban commander. He is reported to have been killed with 29 other fighters. However, Abdul-Bari survived and in fact was imprisoned in Pakistan from 2008-13. He was released in 2013 after a galling stint and promoted to command the Helmand military front. The released Abdul-Bari was at the time confused with another Abdul-Bari Agha, who had been governor during the 1990s. Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/freed-taliban-prisoners-in-pakistan-and-afghanistan-return-to-jihad)
Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi is a former mujahideen "freedom fighter" and Taliban military commander who renounced his allegiance to run for the Parliament of Afghanistan in 2005, and for the Presidency in 2009. The Asia Times described him as one of the former Taliban who "... act as the Taliban's political wing in Kabul." Rocketi is an ethnic Pashtun from Zabul Province in Afghanistan. Son of Haji Manzar, he had almost completed his religious studies before he joined the mujahedeen war against the foreign invaders.
Ilyas Kashmiri, also referred to as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, Mufti Ilyas Kashmiri and Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, was a Pakistani ex-Special Forces Islamist guerrilla insurgent who fought against Indian troops in Kashmir.
Abdul Haq al-Turkistani is a Uyghur Islamic militant who leads the Turkistan Islamic Party. The United States Treasury reported he took over leadership of the organization in 2003, following the death of its previous leader, and took a seat on al-Qaeda's shura in 2005.
The Lashkar al-Zil or Shadow Army is a paramilitary organization linked to al-Qaeda and descended from the 055 Brigade. According to Syed Saleem Shahzad, it "comprises the Pakistani Taliban, 313 Brigade, the Afghan Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan and former Iraqi Republican Guards". Lashkar al-Zil has reportedly been led by Khalid Habib al Shami, Abdullah Said al Libi, and Ilyas Kashmiri.
Events in the year 2017 in Afghanistan.
The Battle of Darzab was a major conflict between the Taliban and the Islamic State's Khorasan Province (IS-KP) who fought each other over control of Jowzjan Province's Darzab District in Afghanistan. Following heavy clashes, IS-KP was defeated, with most of the group's forces in Jowzjan Province killed or captured.
Mufti Nemat, also known as Mufti Nematullah Qaweem Persian: نعمت الله قاویم or Mullah Nemat Mufti, is an Afghan militant and Salafist cleric who served as a field commander for the Taliban and later the Islamic State's Khorasan Province (ISIL-K) in northern Afghanistan, particularly Jowzjan Province. While waging an insurgency against the Afghan government, he has been accused of committing several war crimes.
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