Friday, July 10, 2009
amid Karzai: Palling around with terrorists?
According to the Department of Defense, Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil needs to be watched because he is a potential terrorist threat, even after being released from his six-year stint at Guantánamo Bay. But high-level officials in Afghanistan disagree with the Pentagon’s decision to list Wakil among 74 former detainees who are considered at risk of participating in terrorist activities.
Wakil was a tribal elder and leading voice for Kunar province when U.S. forces decided to lock him up in 2002 after he met with an American military commander to help defuse a controversy over a local resident being shot by a U.S. soldier. He was first detained at Bagram air base and then shipped to Guantánamo, where he remained until April 30, 2008, when he was relaeased and returned to Afghanistan.
Today, Wakil—accused of associating with terrorist groups by the U.S.—meets regularly with President Hamid Karzai or his top aides. One of Karzai’s challengers in Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election, Mirwais Yasini, disputes American intelligence assessments of Wakil being a terrorist. “How could he be a terrorist?” Yasini told McClatchy Newspapers. “He is never far off the government’s radar. I have never known him to do anything criminal.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Where's Pentagon 'Terrorism Suspect'? Talking to Karzai (by Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers)
Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil (New York Times)
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