Died 2008, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan | ||
Muhammad Hanif (Arabic: محمد حنيف) (died November 2008) was a media spokesman for the Taliban from October 2005 until his capture by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) on January 17, 2007. Hanif and Yousef Ahmadi were appointed in October 2005 after the previous spokesman, Latifullah Hakimi, was captured. His main tool of communication to news organizations was e-mail. On the day of his capture, Afghan intelligence officials released a recording of part of Hanif's interrogation. In this recording Hanif tells his interrogators that the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar was staying in the Pakistani city of Quetta under the protection of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency.
Shortly after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hanif reached the press by means of a satellite telephone, and read a statement about the "martyr" which he claimed was written by Mullah Omar.
Death
Muhammad Hanif and three of his relatives were assassinated at his home in Nangarhar Province in late November 2008.