Taliban's ex-interior minister Khairullah Khairkhwa is reportedly behind the massive Afghanistan takeover that has plunged the Middle Eastern country into chaos this past few weeks. Khairkhwa's release from Guantanamo Bay was ordered by former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2014 in exchange for the former U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
According to Fox News, Khairkhwa was accused by Pentagon officials of being a close associate of the late Osama bin Laden and believed he was too dangerous to be released, therefore holding him in Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to 2014. However, the Obama administration had to conduct a prisoner swap to free Bergdahl, a soldier who was held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan after he deserted his post in June 2009.
The circumstances surrounding Bergdahl's capture and release remain shrouded in controversy, however. According to the Army Times, the soldier pleaded guilty in 2017 for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in relation to his 2009 departure from a remote post near the Pakistan border just five months into his deployment. He was taken hostage and imprisoned by the Taliban for five years, which launched a search operation, in which men were seriously injured.
Despite this, former President Obama honored Bergdahl at a Rose Garden ceremony, in which the soldier's father bizarrely praised Allah. Former President Donald Trump later on criticized Bergdahl and described him as a traitor.
Bergdahl's freedom was guaranteed in exchange for the Taliban Five: Khairkhwa, along with four others: Taliban intelligence service deputy chief Abdul Haq Wasiq, Taliban Army Chief of Staff Mohammad Fazl, Taliban chief of communications Mohammad Nabi Omari, and Norullah Noori, governor of the Balkh and Laghman provinces.
The late Republican Sen. John McCain from Arizona at the time criticized the Obama administration for setting free the Taliban Five, saying that they were the "hardest of the hard-core. These are the highest high-risk people."
Hard-core, indeed they are, especially Khairkhwa, who the New York Post's investigative reporter Paul Sperry says is the "mastermind of the regime change" in Afghanistan today. The report said that Khairkhwa assured the Biden administration that the Taliban would "not launch a spring military offensive" if President Joe Biden promised to send home all remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Khairkhwa also said he would not fight Afghans who worked with the U.S. military or U.S. backed Afghan government in Kabul. The tides appear to have changed however following his ravaging of Gitmo.
According to WND, the Taliban leader and his men responsible for the Afghanistan takeover promised through Taliban commander Muhammed Arif Mustafa that the "jihad" will continue until they experience victory. Mustafa declared, "It's our belief that one day, mujahedin will have victory, and Islamic law will come not to just Afghanistan, but all over the world. We are not in a hurry. We believe it will come one day. Jihad will not end until the last day."
