Report: Osama bin Laden’s Security Chief Returns to Afghanistan

Amin al Haq, a former security chief for late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, reportedly “returned to his home in eastern Afghanistan” on Monday, the Long War Journal reported.

“Dr. Amin al Haq, the former head of bin Laden’s Black Guard, was captured on video in a large convoy as it traveled through a checkpoint in Nangarhar province,” the journal, published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on August 30. The exact date of the video’s filming remains unclear.

“Haq was accompanied by a large convoy of heavily armed Taliban fighters in brand new SUVs. A small crowd flocked to Haq to shake his hand and take selfies with him,” the publication detailed.

Haq’s alleged return to his hometown on Monday, replete with fanfare from locals, indicates that “Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan,” according to the Long War Journal.

The Taliban terror group seized full control of Afghanistan on August 15 when it deposed the U.S.-backed government of Kabul, the national capital. The invasion of Afghanistan’s seat of government came after a months-long campaign by the Taliban in which it successfully reconquered most of the country by wresting control of strategic cities and provinces from the Afghan government.

The jihadist terror group previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, before the U.S. launched a military operation in the country following al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001. Washington accused the Taliban of harboring the leader of al-Qaeda at the time, Osama bin Laden, within Afghanistan’s borders. The administration of President Joe Biden claimed the U.S. military presence had permanently ended in Afghanistan on Monday, the same day video surfaced online of former al-Qaeda commander Al Haq freely returning to his hometown in Nangarhar province.

“Al Haq began his career as a jihadist as a member of the Hizb-i Islami Khalis (HIK), a faction of the Hizb-i-Islami group that was founded by Maulvi Mohammed Yunis Khalis, who was instrumental in welcoming Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan after Al Qaeda was ejected from Sudan in 1996,” the Long War Journal recalled on Monday.

“As leader of the Black Guard, al Haq accompanied Osama bin Laden during the 2001 battle at Tora Bora in Nangarhar province. Al Haq helped the Al Qaeda emir and other senior al Qaeda leaders escape the U.S. and Afghan militia assault on the cave complex and flee to Pakistan,” according to the journal.

“During renewed fighting at Tora Bora in the summer of 2007, which was led by Anwarul Haq Mujahid, the eldest son of Khalis, al Haq was reportedly wounded and fled across the border into Pakistan’s Kurram tribal agency,” the Long War Journal continued.

“Al Haq was said to be detained by Pakistani security forces in the city of Lahore in 2008. Lahore is the home of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Al Qaeda-allied, Pakistan-sponsored terror group that has significant infrastructure in the city,” the publication noted. “He was reportedly released in 2011, and he subsequently disappeared from public eye until he emerged in Nangarhar today [August 30].”

Afghanistan shares a 1,640 mile-long border with Pakistan. Observers and foreign governments, such as those of the U.S. and India, have long accused Pakistan’s government of harboring Taliban militants, along with allied al-Qaeda terrorists, within Pakistan’s borders.