U.N.: Osama bin Laden’s Son Met Taliban in October 2021

Abdallah bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden — the former leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group — allegedly traveled to Afghanistan in October 2021 to meet with the Taliban, India Today reported Sunday citing a United Nations (U.N.) report published February 3.

“Bin Laden’s son, Abdallah, visited Afghanistan in October for meetings with the Taliban,” the 29th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the U.N. Security Council revealed citing the claim of an unspecified U.N. Security Council member state.

The U.N. Security Council consists of five permanent members: China, Russia, the United Kingdom (U.K.), the United States (U.S.), and France. The body counts ten additional non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the U.N. General Assembly, a group that currently includes India and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).

The Taliban deposed Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government on August 15, 2021. The Sunni fundamentalist group previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 before the U.S. launched a military offensive in the country in late 2001 with the goal of ejecting the Taliban from Kabul, Afghanistan’s seat of government and national capital. The U.S. military succeeded in removing the Taliban from Kabul in 2001. The action marked the beginning of a nearly 20-year-long campaign in which Washington supported Kabul’s internationally recognized Afghan national government.

The U.S., along with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.) forces, launched the War in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 in response to a terror attack on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001. Washington blamed this attack on Al-Qaeda, an international jihadist terrorist organization founded and formerly led by Osama bin Laden. The U.S. government accused the Taliban of allowing bin Laden safe haven within Afghanistan’s borders, which Washington said had allegedly helped him evade international security forces. U.S. intelligence tracked bin Laden to Pakistan in 2011, where a special forces operation team neutralized him in May of that year.

Al-Qaeda released a statement on August 30, 2021, congratulating the Taliban on its successful seizure of power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021.

“Since that statement, Al-Qaida has maintained a strategic silence, likely an effort not to compromise Taliban efforts to gain international recognition and legitimacy,” according to the 29th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the U.N. Security Council.

“Al-Qaida is also continuing to recover from a series of leadership losses and is assessed to lack the capability to conduct high-profile attacks overseas, which remains its long-term goal,” the report stated.

“Amin Muhammad ul-Haq Saam Khan, who coordinated security for Usama Bin Laden, returned to his home in Afghanistan in late August [2021],” according to the U.N. Security Council.

The Taliban asserted itself as Afghanistan’s legitimate ruler in recent years and refused to accept the sovereignty of the U.S.-backed Afghan national government in Kabul. In an effort to persuade the Taliban to recognize the rule of the Afghan government, Washington launched a series of peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government officials in September 2020 in Doha, Qatar.

The negotiation included a clause stipulating that the U.S. military would agree to fully withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, if the Taliban agreed not to attack U.S. servicemen or support or host “international terrorist groups” in Afghanistan.

The agreement read:

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan reaffirms its continued commitment not to cooperate with or permit international terrorist groups or individuals to recruit, train, raise funds (including through the production or distribution of narcotics), transit Afghanistan or misuse its internationally recognized travel documents, or conduct other support activities in Afghanistan, and will not host them.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid suggested to Afghanistan’s Tolo News on July 12, 2021, that his organization still “maintains ties with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”

“Nowhere in the agreement has it been mentioned that we have or don’t have ties with anyone,” he told Tolo News at the time, referring to the Doha peace treaty.

Mujahid was responding to a long list of evidence presented by Tolo News indicating that the Taliban continued to associate with one particular “international terrorist group,” Al-Qaeda, during its ultimately failed peace talks with Washington.