Haji Najibullah: Ex-Taliban commander pleads responsible of taking US journalist hostage

Haji Najibullah, a former Taliban commander, has pleaded responsible to kidnapping a US journalist and supporting lethal assaults on American troopers.

The plea was made in a Manhattan federal court docket on Friday, by which Najibullah pleaded responsible to offering weapons and help to Taliban militants between 2007 and 2009.

By means of an interpreter, he knowledgeable Decide Katherine Polk Failla that he knowingly helped the Taliban in conducting assaults in opposition to US troops in Afghanistan. “On account of materials assist I supplied to the Taliban, US troopers have been killed,” he mentioned.

Najibullah, 49, mentioned he equipped weapons, fighters, and actively participated in Taliban operations whereas main in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province. He defined how his unit employed suicide bombers, automated rifles, roadside bombs, and rocket-propelled grenades of their operations.

“The fighters below me have been ready to, and generally did, conduct assaults in opposition to US troopers and their allies,” he added.

HOW REPORTERS WERE CAPTURED AND HELD HOSTAGE

In a press launch, the US Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned, “In or about November 2007 and September 2008, Najibullah participated in two video-recorded interviews with a French reporter in Afghanistan. Najibullah and fighters below his command mentioned how they focused American and French troops—together with a selected assault they carried out in opposition to French troops in or round August 2008.”

Najibullah additionally admitted to having a lead position within the kidnapping of David Rohde, a former New York Instances journalist, Afghan journalist Tahir Ludin, and their driver Asadullah Mangal in 2008. The three have been kidnapped en path to an interview with a Taliban chief on November 10, 2008.

Najibullah acknowledged that the motive of the kidnapping was for ransom cash and the discharge of the prisoners from the Taliban. “I created proof-of-life movies of David Rohde and his companions by which they have been compelled to convey the Taliban’s calls for,” he informed the court docket.

Rohde and Ludin have been detained for over seven months in a compound managed by the Taliban within the tribal area of Pakistan earlier than they escaped. Mangal, their driver, additionally escaped a number of weeks later. Rohde, a senior government editor for nationwide safety at NBC Information and Pulitzer Prize winner, was amongst the individuals who testified in court docket immediately.

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