By Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -As a crowd regarded on, uniformed Taliban surrounded the Toyota Landcruiser wherein Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, sat. Different Taliban smashed open the door of his Kabul residence, rising later together with his laptop computer and papers.
Blindfolded within the again seat, Habibi and his driver had been pushed off by gunmen sporting shoulder patches of the Taliban’s feared secret police, the Normal Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), in keeping with a number of witness statements in U.S. authorities possession seen by Reuters.
Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities denies it detained Habibi, 37, who was a former head of Afghanistan’s civil aviation. Whereas dividing his time between the US and Kabul working for a personal firm, he grew to become a U.S. citizen after the Taliban took energy in 2021. The Taliban additionally says they don’t have any information of his whereabouts, three years after he disappeared.
That’s contradicted by the witness accounts and different proof, together with knowledge monitored from Habibi’s cellphone, described to Reuters by a U.S. official and a former U.S. official accustomed to the matter.
The Taliban denials current a conundrum for the FBI, which is main the U.S. authorities effort to achieve his launch; and for the State Division, which describes Habibi’s detention a serious obstacle to exploring elevated engagement with Afghanistan, three years after his August 10, 2022 arrest.
U.S. President Donald Trump has made liberating People held overseas a prime precedence and already has secured the discharge of dozens, together with from Afghanistan, Russia and Venezuela.
The case of Habibi – the one publicly recognized American held within the nation – has been tougher to resolve.
This story is essentially the most complete account thus far of the circumstances of Habibi’s seize and contains beforehand unreported particulars.
Amongst them, interviews with the U.S. official and a former U.S. official with information of the case reveal that the Taliban doubtless detained Habibi as a result of the CIAhadpenetrated the companywherehe labored.The sources say the U.S. spy company had accessed one of many firm’s safety cameras, serving to it pinpoint the al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul guesthouse.
Habibi’s detention got here 10 days after Zawahiri – the final of the highest plotters of the September 11, 2001, assault on the US – was dramatically assassinated by a U.S. drone strike on the guesthouse, ordered by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.
On the time, U.S. officers briefed journalists that it was a CIA operation. The U.S. sources instructed Reuters that Habibi was unaware of the CIA plot and was wrongly detained after returning to Kabul from a piece journey to Dubai after the assassination, oblivious of the hazard he was in.
The CIA, the Taliban, the White Home and Habibi’s employer, Virginia-based ARX Communications, didn’t reply to detailed requests for remark for this story. ARX has beforehand mentioned neither it, nor its subsidiaries, had been concerned with the strike on Zawahiri. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm whether or not Habibi was or wasn’t conscious of the plot.
In a press release to Reuters, a State Division spokesperson referred to as for Habibi’s quick launch.
“We all know the Taliban kidnapped Mahmood Habibi almost three years in the past,” the spokesperson mentioned.
A co-worker detained with Habibi, then later launched, noticed him in GDI headquarters and heard him in an adjoining room being requested if he labored for the CIA or was concerned within the strike on Zawahiri, in keeping with one of many statements in U.S authorities possession, seen by Reuters.
Then, in June and August of 2023, the U.S. authorities detected that his cell phone had been switched on in GDI headquarters, the U.S. official and former official mentioned.
Reuters couldn’t attain the witnesses who made statements, together with the coworker, or confirm the accuracy of their account of Habibi’s detention. The U.S. official accustomed to the matter mentioned excerpts of the statements have been offered to the Taliban in response to their repeated denials of Habibi’s detention.
As Habibi and his household on Sunday mark the third anniversary of his arrest, the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to win his launch, together with providing a $5 million reward for info. However up to now, he seems no nearer to freedom, the U.S. sources mentioned.
“Our household has new hope that the Trump workforce shall be profitable,” mentioned Habibi’s older brother, Ahmad.
Ahmad mentioned his brother would by no means have gone to Kabul 4 days after the Zawahiri assassination if the CIA had instructed ARX to warn him it was too harmful to return.
“No person instructed him something. Neither the corporate, neither the CIA nor anyone. So, he simply went again,” Ahmad mentioned.
The U.S. authorities formally considers Habibi a hostage, mentioned the U.S. official, as a result of his arrest and placement stay unconfirmed by the Taliban. The official and the previous official spoke on situation of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the case.
In response to a request for remark, the FBI mentioned that together with companions in different U.S. departments concerned in hostage restoration, it stays “dedicated to bringing Habibi house to his household.”
The Taliban rejected a suggestion made final 12 months to commerce Habibi for alleged Osama bin Laden aide Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani, the final Afghan held within the Guantanamo Bay army jail.
“We’ve tried when it comes to each carrots and sticks,” mentioned the official, who requested anonymity to debate the case.
The Taliban “actually throw up a wall,” mentioned the official.
CAMERA ON CELL TOWER
As a part of the operation in opposition to Zawahiri, the CIA penetrated the Asia Consultancy Group (ACG), a subsidiary of ARX, in keeping with the present and former U.S. officers, who offered beforehand unreported particulars of how the spy company was capable of goal the al Qaeda chief. Reuters offered these particulars to the CIA, ACG and ARX, requesting remark, however obtained no response.
ACG, whose father or mother is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, had a contract to erect cellphone towers round Kabul, the sources mentioned. CCTV cameras had been fitted to the towers to guard the buildings, they mentioned.
One of many cameras, the sources mentioned, was pointed at a home U.S. officers have linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s appearing inside minister each on the time and now, within the coronary heart of Kabul’s diplomatic quarter, a brief distance from the shuttered British and American embassies.
The sources mentioned the digicam despatched again video to the CIA confirming Zawahiri’s presence within the residence.
That affirmation helped the company kill the Egyptian Islamist with two drone-fired Hellfire R9X missiles on July 31, 2022, as he emerged onto a balcony, they mentioned. His spouse and household survived the strike.
Whereas officers within the Biden administration on the time described the CIA’s drone operation to kill Zawahiri with Hellfires, the main points of the company’s operation on the bottom, together with the presence of the digicam and its position in figuring out Zawahiri haven’t been beforehand disclosed.
ARREST
On the day of his arrest, Mahmood Habibi was in his residence in Kabul’s Sherpur neighborhood packing to return to New Jersey, the place he had a house, with the assistance of a sister, who was there along with her two kids, in keeping with Ahmad.
It was about midday when a cellphone name got here from the ACG workplace saying it had simply been raided by the Taliban, Ahmad mentioned. Habibi instructed his sister that he needed to depart with out explaining why. He was arrested instantly after entering into his car, Ahmad mentioned.
A couple of minutes later, someone saying that they had been with GDI knocked on his residence door, in keeping with Ahmad and a witness assertion. His sister declined to open it, telling these outdoors that she needed to conform to the Taliban rule that an grownup male family member needed to be current.
The Taliban broke open the door, entered the residence and rifled by means of closets and drawers, demanding Habibi’s laptop computer, in keeping with Ahmad and the witness assertion.
A crowd had gathered outdoors after the Taliban arrived in 5 autos, blocked the road and surrounded Habibi’s automobile, earlier than driving him off, in keeping with Ahmad and a separate witness assertion.
The GDI arrested 30 different ACG staff, in keeping with a letter that ACG despatched to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Communications, seen by Reuters. Aside from Habibi and one different, all had been ultimately launched.
Within the letter, dated September 15, 2022, ACG requested that relations be allowed to go to him and three different workers who the GDI nonetheless held.
The ministry appeared to substantiate Habibi was a GDI prisoner in a reply two days later, seen by Reuters, saying that the intelligence directorate would determine on the petition when its investigation was accomplished.
Nonetheless, in a July 3, 2025 assertion reported by Afghanistan’s state information company, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid mentioned that in response to requests from Habibi’s household, the Taliban had investigated however no proof has been discovered to recommend that he was detained by Afghanistan’s safety forces.
Mujahid mentioned the Taliban are a legit governing physique that doesn’t detain people with out due course of or cover them from public view. Mujahid didn’t reply to a Reuters request for remark.
US CITIZEN
Born to folks from the southern metropolis of Kandahar, Habibi is one in every of eight siblings – three brothers and 5 sisters – who grew up within the Kabul neighborhood of Karte Parwan.
His glorious English helped him safe a job with the U.N. civil aviation company in Kabul in 2008. He labored for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s U.S. embassy workplace from 2011 to 2013.
Tapped as deputy civil aviation minister, Habibi helped transition Afghanistan’s air site visitors system from U.S. management to the U.S.-backed Kabul authorities. Habibi grew to become civil aviation minister in 2017. He held that publish till 2019 whereas incomes a civil aviation grasp’s diploma from Embry Riddle Aeronautical College in Florida, the college confirmed.
In 2019, he resigned after which joined ARX to assist oversee its Afghan subsidiary’s contract to run air site visitors management at Kabul’s worldwide airport. Habibi lived between the town and the US, accumulating the final of the 30 months of U.S. residency he wanted over a five-year interval for U.S. citizenship in 2021, Ahmad mentioned.
He was in Kabul together with his household through the chaotic departure of the final U.S. troops in August 2021, Ahmad mentioned, because the Taliban consolidated its grip on the capital after 20 years of struggle.
Habibi flew from Dubai to Kabul on August 4, 2022, after stopping in Qatar to verify on his household and oldsters who had been housed on a U.S. army base there ready for remaining processing of U.S. immigration visas, mentioned Ahmad. Every week later Habibi was arrested.
His spouse, daughter and oldsters, who waited in Qatar till October for his or her visas earlier than flying to the US and settling in California, haven’t seen or heard from him since.
Resolving Habibi’s case can be the best means for the Taliban, who crave worldwide recognition as Afghanistan’s legit rulers, to discover enhancing ties with the U.S., the present U.S. official mentioned.
Since Habibi’s detention, 4 different People have been arrested and launched by the Taliban.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Further reporting by Saeed Shah in Islamabad; Enhancing by Frank Jack Daniel)