Claims from analysts at Guantanamo that Khairkhwa was directly associated with Osama bin Laden and Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Muhammad Omar have been widely repeated.[10]Kate Clark has criticized her fellow journalists for uncritically repeating U.S. claims that were largely based on unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo, or on confessions and denunciations coerced through torture and other extreme interrogation techniques.[11]
Khairullah was one of the original members of the Taliban in 1994[11][13] and was a spokesman for them from 1994 to 1996.[12] He was chief of police after the Taliban took control of Kabul in 1996.[14] He was the Minister of the Interior under Taliban rule in 1997 and 1998, with Abdul Samad Khaksar, also called Mohammad Khaksar, as deputy minister.
Some reports have said he had been the Taliban's deputy minister of the interior, interim minister of the interior, the minister of the interior, and the Minister of Information.[6][8] Khirullah was also to serve as the Taliban's Minister of Foreign Affairs spokesman, giving interviews to the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Voice of America. He was the Governor of Herat Province from 1999 to 2001.[12]
Kate Clark, then of the BBC News, interviewed Khairkhwa in September 2000. Clark wrote that Khairkhwa was comfortable conversing in the Dari language when most Taliban leaders, all members of Afghanistan's Pashtun ethnic group, would only speak in the Pashtun language. She wrote that under Khairkhwa, she was allowed to film openly in Herat, even though doing so was disallowed under Taliban law. She wrote that under Khairkhwa, Afghan women felt comfortable approaching her, and speaking with her, something that rarely happened in other regions of Afghanistan.[11]
According to journalist Mark Mazzetti, in February 2002, Khairkhwa and alleged CIA agent Ahmed Wali Karzai discussed the possibility of Khairkhwa surrendering and informing for the CIA. However, the deal broke down and Khairkhwa fled for Pakistan; the CIA learned of his flight through a communications intercept and the U.S. military dispatched a helicopter-borne commando team to capture Khairkhwa. However, the CIA hoped to allow the Pakistanis to recruit or capture Khairkhwa, which would also boost U.S.-Pakistan relations. Thus, the CIA recalled the drone following Khairkhwa's truck and a second drone pinpointed a different truck, whose innocent occupants were captured and later released. Khairkhwa successfully crossed into Pakistan at Spin Boldak, but after further talks over informing broke down, Khairkhwa was arrested by the Pakistanis in Chaman, transferred to the CIA in Quetta, and then sent to Guantanamo.[15]
Guantanamo Bay internment
Khairullah Khairkhwa while detained at Guantanamo Bay
Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations. Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa was listed as one of the captives who:[23]
the military alleges were members of either al Qaeda or the Taliban and associated with the other group.[23]
"The military alleges ... fought for the Taliban."[23]
was one of "36 [who] openly admit either membership or significant association with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or some other group the government considers militarily hostile to the United States."[23]
On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated, United States PresidentBarack Obama issued three Executive orders related to the detention of individuals in Guantanamo.[24][25][26][27]
He put in place a new review system composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request.[28]
Khairullah Khairkhwa was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge but too dangerous to release. Obama said those in that category would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board. The first review was not convened until November 20, 2013.[29]
Release
The Afghanistan High Peace Council called for his release in 2011.[30] In early 2011, President Hamid Karzai demanded his release and Hekmat Karzai, the director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul, said "His release will be influential to the peace process," and that "Mr Khairkhwa is well respected amongst the Taliban and was considered a moderate by those who knew him".[2][3]
Throughout the fall of 2011 and the winter of 2012, the United States conducted peace negotiations with the Taliban and widely leaked that a key sticking point was the ongoing detention of Khairkhwa and four other senior Taliban, Norullah Noori, Mohammed Fazl, Abdul Haq Wasiq[31][32][33][34] – the Taliban Five. Negotiations hinged on a proposal to send the five men directly to Doha, Qatar, where they would be allowed to set up an official office for the Taliban.
In March 2012, it was reported that Ibrahim Spinzada, described as "Karzai's top aide", had spoken with the five men in Guantanamo earlier that month and had secured their agreement to be transferred to Qatar.[34] Karzai, who had initially opposed the transfer, then reportedly backed the plan.
The Taliban Five were flown to Qatar and released on June 1, 2014. Simultaneously, U.S. soldier and deserter Bowe Bergdahl was released in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban Five were required to spend the next year in Qatar, a condition of their release.[35] They are the only "forever prisoners" to be released without being cleared by a review[36] by the Periodic Review Board.
^ ab"Rebranding the Taliban". Al Jazeera. 2011-03-14. Archived from the original on 2011-10-05. Retrieved 2012-03-12. On March 28, the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, will hear a case on behalf of Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former high-ranking Taliban official who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the past eight years.
^ abcKate Clark (2012-03-09). "Releasing the Guantanamo Five? 1: Biographies of the Prisoners (amended)". Afghanistan Analysts Network. Archived from the original on 2015-05-21. Retrieved 2015-07-05. Unlike many Taleban, he was comfortable speaking to a foreigner and, very unusually, happy to be interviewed in Persian (most Taleban would only speak Pashto at the time). Herat, where he was the governor, was noticeably more relaxed than Kabul, Mazar or Kandahar: I filmed openly in the city (then an illegal act), the economy was reasonably buoyant and women came up to chat – a very rare occurrence.
^ ab"U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
^Andy Worthington (2012-10-25). "Who Are the 55 Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners on the List Released by the Obama Administration?". Retrieved 2015-02-19. I have already discussed at length the profound injustice of holding Shawali Khan and Abdul Ghani, in articles here and here, and noted how their cases discredit America, as Khan, against whom no evidence of wrongdoing exists, nevertheless had his habeas corpus petition denied, and Ghani, a thoroughly insignificant scrap metal merchant, was put forward for a trial by military commission — a war crimes trial — under President Bush.
^M K Bhadrakumar (2012-01-10). "There's more to peace than Taliban". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 2012-01-12. Retrieved 2012-01-11. Nevertheless, Iranian media insist that three high-ranking Taliban leaders have been released - Mullah Khairkhawa, former interior minister; Mullah Noorullah Noori, a former governor; and Mullah Fazl Akhund, the Taliban's chief of army staff - in exchange for an American soldier held by the Taliban.
^"Guantanamo Taliban inmates 'agree to Qatar transfer'". BBC News. 2012-03-10. Archived from the original on 2012-03-12. Retrieved 2012-03-12. If the president pursues this strategy, though, he will need support from wary politicians in Congress, our correspondent says. Many there see a transfer of what they call the most dangerous inmates at Guantanamo as a step too far, he adds.
^
Rahim Faiez, Anne Gearan (2012-03-12). "Taliban prisoners at Guantánamo OK transfer". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2012-03-25. Retrieved 2012-03-12. Five top Taliban leaders held by the U.S. in the Guantánamo Bay military prison told a visiting Afghan delegation they agree to a proposed transfer to the tiny Gulf state of Qatar, opening the door for a possible move aimed at bringing the Taliban into peace talks, Afghan officials said Saturday.
Carol Rosenberg (2013-06-07). "FOIA suit reveals Guantánamo's 'indefinite detainees'". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2014-11-21. Retrieved 2016-04-18. She also noted that, since the list was drawn up, the Obama administration was reportedly considering transferring five Afghan Taliban to custody of the Qatari government in exchange for the release of U.S. POW Bowe Bergdahl. The Wall Street Journal named the five men and all appear on the list released Monday as indefinite detainees: Mullah Mohammad Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and Abdul Haq Wasiq.
