Waheed Muzhda

Mujaheddin

Time magazine reports that in 1989 he worked as a translator for Dr Abdullah Azzam, a leader of Afghan Arabs—foreign fighters who had traveled to Afghanistan to help their fellow Muslims in opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They reported that he noticed what he thought was a crew performing routine road maintenance on a culvert he and his boss crossed everyday—which turned out to be the planting of the remote controlled bomb that killed Azzam.

Taliban

Muzdha was an official in the Taliban's Foreign Ministry during their regime. Muzdha is a former Taliban member who has been allowed to participate openly in the post-Taliban political process.

Publications and participation in Western press

Muzdha wrote a book on relations between Afghanistan and Iran in the 1990s. It is Muzhda's position that the "Great Game", the proxy war Great Britain and Imperial Russia conducted in the region, continues, with the two powers being Iran and the United States. Muzhda has accused Iran of sponsoring fighters in Afghanistan in an attempt to sap the military power of the United States.

The New York Times sought out Muzdha to explain the context of the recent capture of members of the Quetta Shura on March 24, 2010. The New York Times described Muzhda as "a former Taliban official in Kabul who speaks regularly with Taliban leaders", and as an "Afghan analyst who follows the Taliban". They quoted Muzhda's opinion that the other Shura members feared capture so much that they had stopped meeting.

Following the killing of Osama bin Laden the Associated Press sought out Muzdha's opinion. Muzdha asserted "I think now is an opportunity for the Taliban to end their relations with al-Qaida." Muzdha said the Taliban's ties to bin Laden had weakened prior to his death.

On April 9, 2012, Al Jazeera quoted Muzhda after former colleague Abdul Salam Zaeef fled Afghanistan for the United Arab Emirates. Zaeef, like Muzhda, had worked in the Taliban's Foreign Ministry, and had served as the Taliban's Ambassador to Pakistan. Zaeef was held in the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Following his release, he served as a key intermediary between his former colleagues within the Taliban and American peace negotiators and he had been the target of repeated night raids. Muzhda explained that many other former Guantanamo captives who had been the target of night raids had been killed, not captured, and that Zaeef feared that US special forces would kill him in a future raid if he didn't leave Afghanistan.