Afghanistan claims killing an al-Qaida leader wanted by FBI

Afghanistan claimed Sunday it killed a top al-Qaida propagandist on an FBI most-wanted list during an operation in the country's east, showing the militant group's continued presence there as U.S. forces work to withdraw from America's longest-running war amid continued bloodshed there.

The reported death of Husam Abd al-Rauf, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhsin al-Masri, follows weeks of violence including an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing Saturday at an education centre near Kabul that killed 24 people. Meanwhile, the Afghan government continues to fight Taliban militants even as peace talks in Qatar between the two sides take place for the first time.

The violence and al-Rauf's reported killing threatens the face-to-face peace talks and risks plunging this nation beset by decades of war into further instability. It also complicates America's efforts to withdraw, 19 years after it led an invasion targeting the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Details over the raid that led to al-Rauf's alleged death remained murky, hours after Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security intelligence service claimed on Twitter to have killed him in Ghazni province. Al-Qaida did not immediately acknowledge al-Rauf's reported death. The FBI, the U.S. military and NATO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Afghan raid happened last week in Kansas, a village in Ghazni province's Andar district some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Kabul, two government officials said.

Amanullah Kamrani, the deputy head of Ghazni's provincial council, told The Associated Press that Afghan special forces led by the intelligence agency raided Kunsaf, which he described as being under Taliban control. On the village's outskirts, they stormed an isolated home and killed seven suspected militants in a firefight, including al-Rauf, Kamrani said.

Neither Kamrani nor the intelligence agency offered details on how authorities identified al-Rauf, nor how they came to suspect he was in the village.

Wahidullah Jumazada, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, said Afghan forces killed six suspected militants in the raid, without acknowledging al-Rauf had been killed.

Kamrani alleged, without providing evidence, that the Taliban had been offering shelter and protection to al-Rauf. The Taliban told the AP on Sunday they are investigating the incident, without elaborating.

If the Taliban had provided protection for al-Rauf, that would violate the terms of its Feb. 29 deal with the U.S. that jump-started the Afghan peace talks. That deal saw the Taliban agree “not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies,” which includes al-Qaida.

Federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York filed a warrant for al-Rauf's arrest in December 2018, accusing him of providing support to a foreign terrorist organization and being part of a conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens. The FBI put him on the bureau's “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, which now includes 27 others.

The red-headed al-Rauf, believed to be born in 1958, is an Egyptian national. An al-Qaida-issued biography said he joined the mujahedeen fighters who battled the Soviet Union in 1986.

He has served for years as al-Qaida's media chief, offering audio statements and written articles backing the militant group. After years of remaining silent following the acknowledgement of Taliban founder Mullah Omar's death, al-Rauf re-emerged in 2018 in an audio statement in which he mocked President Donald Trump and those who preceded him the White House.

“I name him ‘Donald T-Rambo’ who tries to copy the famous American fictional character ‘Rambo,’ who, with only a Kalashnikov, was able to liberate entire Afghanistan from the Soviet Union,” al-Rauf said, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

Meanwhile Sunday, authorities raised the death toll in Saturday's suicide attack on an education centre near Kabul. The suicide bomber, who was stopped by guards from entering the centre, killed 24 and wounded 57 — many of them young students.

The Islamic State group’s local affiliate claimed credit for the attack in a heavily Shiite neighbourhood of western Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood, saying one of its fighters used a suicide bomb vest in the assault.