{"id":331309,"date":"2021-08-27T21:59:50","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T18:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afghans-with-americas-biometric-data\/"},"modified":"2021-08-27T21:59:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T18:59:50","slug":"taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afghans-with-americas-biometric-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afghans-with-americas-biometric-data\/","title":{"rendered":"#Taliban kill squad hunting Afghans \u2014 with America&#8217;s biometric data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Taliban kill squad hunting Afghans \u2014 with America&#8217;s biometric data<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n        <\/aside>\n<p>The Taliban has mobilized a special unit, called Al Isha, to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces \u2014 and it\u2019s using US equipment and data to do it. <\/p>\n<p>Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders over the Al Isha unit, bragged in an interview <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zenger.news\/\">with Zenger News<\/a> that his unit is using US-made hand-held scanners to tap into a massive US-built biometric database and positively identify any person who helped the NATO allies or worked with Indian intelligence. Afghans who try to deny or minimize their role will find themselves contradicted by the detailed computer records that the US left behind in its frenzied withdrawal. <\/p>\n<p>The existence of the Al Isha unit has not been previously confirmed by the Taliban; until now the Haqqani Network, a terror group aligned with the Taliban, has not admitted its role in targeting Afghans or its use of America\u2019s vast biometric database. <\/p>\n<p>The Haqqani Network is \u201cthe most lethal and sophisticated insurgent group targeting US, Coalition, and Afghan forces,\u201d according to the US National Counterterrorism Center.<\/p>\n<p>The US separately has provided the Taliban with a list of Americans and Afghans it wants to evacuate from the country, a move one defense official told Politico was \u201cjust put[ing] all those Afghans on a kill list.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-005-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"The Taliban special unit, Al Isha, is using American data to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces.\" class=\"wp-image-19269968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-005-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-005-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-005-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>The Taliban special unit, Al Isha, is using American data to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">John Moore\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But the power and reach of the US biometric database is much larger and more comprehensive. Virtually everyone who worked with the Afghan government or the US military, including interpreters, drivers, nurses, and secretaries, was fingerprinted and scanned for the biometric database over the past 12 years. <\/p>\n<p>US officials have not confirmed how many of the 7,000 hand-held scanners were left behind or whether the biometric database could be remotely deleted. The US State and Defense departments acknowledged receipt of questions from Zenger for this story on Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth said he would forward them to \u201cthe right folks\u201d but did not provide answers by press time. State Department press officer Nicole Thompson said the questions were \u201cbeing worked\u201d inside the agency but also didn\u2019t provide a response. White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-001-5.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"The database being utilized by the Taliban includes fingerprints, iris scans, and other biographical information.\" class=\"wp-image-19270020\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-001-5.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-001-5.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-001-5.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>The database being utilized by the Taliban includes fingerprints, iris scans, and other biographical information.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Tauseef Mustafa\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cNow that Kabul is taken, operational work has taken a back seat and we\u2019ve turned our focus on counterintelligence,\u201d Nawazuddin Haqqani told Zenger in a mobile phone conversation on Saturday. \u201cWhile most of the brigade is now resting in different madrassas [Islamic religious schools], the Al Isha group is now the principal agency handling this [biometric] data project.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in control of the Interior Ministry and the national biometric database they kept. We have everyone\u2019s data with us now \u2014 including journalists and so-called human rights people. We haven\u2019t killed a single foreign journalist, have we? We aren\u2019t arresting the families of these people [who are on the blacklist] either,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut American, NDS [Afghanistan\u2019s National Directorate of Security] and RAW\u2019s [India\u2019s Research and Analysis Wing] puppets won\u2019t be let off. They will always be watched by Al Isha. Those who were barking about having US dollars in their pockets till a few days back \u2014 they won\u2019t be spared. They can\u2019t be spared, can they?\u201d <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-006-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"The database can also be used to find any person who worked with British, European or Indian intelligence services.\" class=\"wp-image-19270033\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-006-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-006-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-006-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>The database can also be used to find any person who worked with British, European or Indian intelligence services.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">John Moore\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The database, which includes fingerprints, iris scans, and other biographical data, was housed in a white-washed building at the Ministry of Interior in Kabul. \u201cThe centerpiece of the program is the Afghan Automated Biometric Identification System (AABIS), administered by about 50 Afghans at the Ministry of Interior in Kabul,\u201d according to a 2011 FBI <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> release. The US Army issued an official \u201cCommander\u2019s Guide to Biometrics In Afghanistan\u201d manual in 2011. <\/p>\n<p>The U.S. started with data from some 300,000 Afghans in 2009, mainly prisoners and Afghan soldiers according to NATO, and the biometrics center opened in November 2010. US officials aimed to compile information on as many as 25 million Afghans, roughly 80 percent of the population, Annie Jacobsen, author of \u201cFirst Platoon: A Story of Modern War in The Age of Identity Dominance\u201d (Penguin, 2020), told National Public Radio last year. The exact number of Afghans covered by the database remains classified. <\/p>\n<p>At first, the US hoped to use the biometric database to spot Taliban infiltrators or catch the makers of roadside bombs, which had claimed the lives of hundreds of American and allied sources since 2001. Later, it evolved into a way to identify virtually every Afghan that US forces hired or visited. By 2014, the US Army was calling its strategy \u201cidentity dominance.\u201d <\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignright\">\n    <\/aside>\n<p>Now that identity dominance belongs to the Taliban. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not collecting new data \u2014 we already have it,\u201d said Nawazuddin Haqqani. \u201cThe group [Al Isha] just keeps an eye that if someone has worked for America or the National Directorate of Security [the former Afghan government\u2019s intelligence agency].\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The database is also used to find any person who worked with British, European or Indian intelligence services, he said. \u201cThe matter is being blown out of proportion by the foreign <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a> and its nothing more than a campaign to malign us,\u201d he said. He contended that the database was used to spare the lives of foreign journalists. <\/p>\n<p>The Al Isha unit has more than doubled in size, from 500 to nearly 1,100 over the past month, he told Zenger, and spread out into many of Afghanistan\u2019s 34 provinces. <\/p>\n<p>Asked about reports that Pakistani intelligence officers were supervising the Al Isha unit\u2019s use of biometric data to interrogate former U.S. allies, Nawazuddin Haqqani didn\u2019t deny the Pakistan connection. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are not that naive \u2014 you know the answer to that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what I can say is, it\u2019s not necessary to train everyone in Pakistan. The Emirs [local Taliban chieftains] are quite capable of training the foot soldiers to handle the equipment.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>This suggests Pakistan\u2019s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, has access to America\u2019s biometric database. If Al Isha can identify Indian intelligence sources in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis will pursue them as well. <\/p>\n<p>Asked about details of the data collection, he refused to answer and said: \u201cThis is a question which [Taliban political spokesperson Suhail] Shaheen should answer.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Shaheen declined to comment on the existence of Al Isha, the presence of Pakistani intelligence officers and the use of U.S.-made biometric <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n<p>Nawazuddin Haqqani revealed the history and command structure of the Al Isha unit. \u201cThe Al Isha isn\u2019t a new thing. It\u2019s one of the three groups under the Khalil Haqqani Brigade,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n    <\/aside>\n<p>The brigade is a military unit of more than 2,000 fighters that is named after Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million bounty on his head and leads the Badri 313 unit, which recently mocked the iconic photo of U.S. Marines raising an American flag on Iwo Jima. <\/p>\n<p>Khalil Haqqani is the brother of the late Jalaluddin Haqqani, who mentored Osama Bin Laden and later served as a cabinet minister for the Taliban in the 1990s. <\/p>\n<p>Nawazuddin Haqqani is a member of the Haqqani clan whom Khalil personally put in charge of counterintelligence operations in Kabul. In many ways, Nawazuddin is treated as Khalil\u2019s son. But their exact family relationship is debated among western intelligence analysts and is a sensitive topic that Taliban and Haqqani sources refuse to comment on. <\/p>\n<p>In a different part of Kabul, a 26-year-old former Afghan National Army corps commander was reached on his mobile phone on Aug. 16, hours after the Taliban seized the city. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I have reached home safely and am with my parents, wife and child,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think I will be here for long. They\u2019re going door to door and scanning everyone with biometric scanners, and they\u2019ll knock on my doors anytime now.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Asked if he was referring to the Taliban, his words were precise: \u201cThe Al Isha actually.\u201d The corps commander, who asked that his name be withheld because Al Isha is actively hunting him, says he is in the biometric database because of his volunteer work as a media coordinator with an Afghan nonprofit organization. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Afghan Taliban are incapable of handling the biometric equipment or the database\u201d he said. \u201cEvery search party is overseen by a Pakistani officer or a member of the Haqqani Network.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The former corps commander\u2019s phone has since gone dead.\n                        <\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/08\/27\/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afghans-with-americas-biometric-data\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Taliban kill squad hunting Afghans \u2014 with America&#8217;s biometric data&#8221; The Taliban has mobilized a special unit, called Al Isha, to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces \u2014 and it\u2019s using US equipment and data to do it. Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders over the Al Isha unit, bragged in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":331310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/afghanistan-007-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[114987,72315,75063,72318],"class_list":["post-331309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-8-27-21","tag-afghanistan","tag-biometrics","tag-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}