by Harry Howard, James Tapsfield and Jack Maidment at The Daily Mail
A former Guantanamo Bay detainee has been appointed as the Taliban‘s acting defence minister after the group’s takeover of Afghanistan, according to reports.
Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, who was born in 1973, was released from the notorious Cuba-based camp, which is run by the US, during George W Bush’s Presidency in 2007, according to Arab news sources.
He was originally arrested by US forces after their invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Zakir reportedly carried the number eight while in prison.
After his release from Guantanamo, he is said to have directed military operations in Helmand before taking over as the Taliban’s general military commander.
On Tuesday, Arab news channel cited Al-Jazeera cited Taliban sources and reported that Zakir is now to become the group’s defence minister.
Zakir is said to be a ‘personal friend’ of Ismail Qaani – the head of Iran’s elite Quds force – and has previously received sophisticated weapons systems from the Middle East neighbour.
According to Arab news site Alarby, Zakir was in charge of the force who entered the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul earlier this month after the official government led by president Ashraf Ghani collapsed…
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