Abdul Salam Zaeef

Early activity

Zaeef was born in 1968 to a poor family in the small village of Zangiabad in Kandahar of southern Afghanistan and received a basic religious education years before the Soviet invasion. He was barely one-year old when he lost his mother. His uncle, mullah Nezam, was accused of killing 16 people in a tribal feud and was later killed by government forces. He fled from Kandahar to a refugee camp in Nushki, Balochistan, Pakistan when he was about 10 years old along with much of the rest of the population (and relatives) after the Soviet invasion and later joined the mujahedeen in 1983 to fought alongside with senior commanders. During the war, he was ambushed nine times and injured twice. In an attack on Kandahar Airport in 1988, he lost fifty of the fifty-eight men under his command. By the time Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, he was a junior commander in the Mujahedeen. After the withdrawal, he worked as a laborer in a village and later a mullah.

Capture and detention

Following the U.S. invasion, Zaeef was forced to end his news conferences, seized by Pakistani authorities, and handed over to American operatives. The Pajhwok Afghan News reported that Zaeef was freed from Guantanamo Bay.

Repatriation

Zaeef was released from Guantanamo in the summer of 2005.

An article in the Daily Times on 18 September 2005, Zaeef is quoted as saying that his release was "due to the effort of some friends". He did not attribute his release to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal or his 2005 Administrative Review Board hearing. He described the actions of these two bodies as illegal.

Abuse claims

Zaeef claims he was chained in illegal "stress positions" and subjected to sleep deprivation and extremes of temperature while held in the USA's Bagram Theater Detention Facility.

Call for a unity government

On 12 April 2007 Zaeef stirred controversy by calling for a unity-government in Afghanistan.

On Friday 6 June 2008 The Guardian published excerpts from an interview with Zaeef. It reported he claimed negotiations with the Taliban was the key to peace. And it reported he argued that the presence of foreign troops eroded the authority of the central government:

"As long as the foreign troops are here, negotiations with the government will be difficult."

Move to Kabul

An article in Der Spiegel on 12 April 2007, reported that Zaeef had moved into a "...handsome guest house, located in the dusty modern neighborhood Khosh Hal Khan." The article in Der Spiegel goes on to state that the new home Karzai's government has provided Zaeef is around the corner from one occupied by former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil. Der Spiegel described Zaeef's home as being guarded, inside and out, by a heavily armed security detail. Der Spiegel described both Zaeef and Muttawakil as regarded as among the more moderate former members of the Taliban.

Zaeff told the Chicago Tribune that Afghan security officials would not allow him to attend the mosque near his Kabul home.

McClatchy interview

On 15 June 2008 the McClatchy News Service published articles based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo captives. McClatchy reporters interviewed Abdul Salam Zaeef. The McClatchy reports state that guards told him he was the "King of the prison", and that he took a lead role in the Guantanamo hunger strikes. They also state that guards in the Kandahar detention facility made him pointlessly move human excrement back and forth.

Saudi peace talks

Zaeef acknowledged being invited by Saudi King Abdullah to unofficially meet with other leading Afghan figures, from the Karzai government, the Taliban, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami and other former members of the Taliban. Zaeef denied this meeting should be characterized as "peace talks". He stated that none of the individuals at this meeting had been authorized to conduct negotiations. Zaeef denied anyone discussed Afghanistan at this meeting. According to The Age other figures who attended the meeting included former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Fazel Hadi Shinwari.

Publications

Zaeef released a book in the Pashto language, "A Picture of Guantanamo," detailing his claims of mistreatment at Guantanamo.

In October 2008, Abdul Salam Zaeef edited in Paris with the French journalist Jean-Michel Caradec'h, a recent book: "Prisonnier à Guantanamo". EGDV/Documents. 2008.

In January 2010, an English translation of Abdul Salam Zaeef's autobiography was published, My Life with the Taliban. The book has been reviewed positively as offering a powerful look into what "drives" the Taliban.

Lawsuit

In October 2008, Zaeef said he would sue Pakistan for his arrest there in 2002.

THiNK 2013

In 2013 Mullah Zaeef met with Robert Grenier at a conference in which they discussed the invasion and the general positions of the Taliban government and the United States.

Flees harassment by US Forces

On 9 April 2012, Al Jazeera reported that Zaeef had fled for his life. He fled to the United Arab Emirates. Al Jazeera quoted associates close to Zaeef who described repeated US attempts by US forces to raid Zaeef's house and seize him. Zaeef had been in protective custody by the Afghan government since his release from Guantanamo. Quoting Al Jazeera's Waheed Muzhda:

Zaeef feared for his life in the wake of the attempted raids on his home. Many of the Taliban prisoners freed from Guantanamo had been killed in night raids and that made Zaeef more nervous.