A man freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the US-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials said.
Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, the officials said last week.
The story of Abdul Qayyum could add to the complications US President Barack Obama is facing in fulfilling his pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo by sending some prisoners back to their home countries or to other willing nations, while putting others on trial.
US intelligence says that 20 percent of suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay prison have returned to the fight and the number has been steadily increasing.
Qayyum’s key aide in plotting attacks on Afghan and international forces is another former Guantanamo prisoner, said the Afghan intelligence officials as well as a former Helmand governor, Sher Mohammed Akundzada. Abdul Rauf, who told his US interrogators he had only loose connections to the Taliban, spent time in an Afghan jail before being freed last year.
He rejoined the Taliban, they said. Akundzada said he warned authorities against releasing both him and Qayyum.
Like Qayyum, Rauf is from Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. Under Taliban rule, which ended in late 2001, Rauf was a corps commander in the western province of Herat and in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Akhundzada said.
The intelligence officials were interviewed in Helmand and spoke on condition of anonymity.
They said Qayyum was given charge of the military campaign in the south about 14 months ago, soon after his release from the Afghan jail to which he had been transferred from Guantanamo. That includes managing the battle for the town of Marjah, where NATO troops are flushing out remaining militants.
Qayyum, whose Taliban nom de guerre is Qayyum Zakir, is thought to be running operations from the Pakistani city of Quetta. A Pakistani newspaper report that he was recently arrested was denied by Abdul Razik, a former governor of Kajaki, Qayyum’s home district, which is under extensive Taliban control.
One of the intelligence officials also questioned the report. He said a house Qayyum was in was raided about two weeks ago and three assistants were arrested but he escaped. A week ago he was seen in Pishin, a Pakistani border town, the official said.
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