An Afghan man arrested in Virginia final week for allegedly offering materials help to ISIS beforehand held a high-level nationwide safety place in his former nation, The Publish has discovered.
Jaan Shah Safi was booked in Waynesboro, VA, and branded an “unlawful alien terrorist” by the Division of Homeland Safety, which introduced Dec. 3 he had offered help to ISIS-Ok and “offered weapons to his father who’s a commander of a militia group in Afghanistan.”
What the DHS announcement didn’t reveal was that Safi, 48, beforehand served because the deputy director of the Nationwide Directorate of Safety, the previous Afghan authorities’s model of the CIA, within the province of Nangarhar.
He was amongst 1000’s of Afghans who got here to the US underneath the Biden Administration’s Operation Allies Welcome.
“He’s not only a soldier or only a commander. He was a really senior man, Haibatullah Alizai, who served as chief of workers of the Afghan Military over the last days earlier than the autumn of Kabul, advised The Publish.
Throughout one other stint in Safi’s profession he was “probably the most key intelligence man in Kunar Province,” mentioned Alizai, who mentioned he and different Afghan expats had been shocked by the arrest. “This household has at all times been a counterterrorism household. They’re well-known for that.”
The Trump Administration introduced Safi’s gorgeous arrest simply days after the arrest of alleged Nationwide Guard shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was charged with first diploma homicide for the killing of Sarah Beckstrom, 20, in Washington DC. He pleaded not responsible.
“This terrorist was arrested miles from our nation’s capital the place our courageous Nationwide Guard heroes, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, had been shot simply days in the past by one other unvetted Afghan terrorist introduced into our nation,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem mentioned in an announcement.
One other Afghan man, Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, was arrested in Texas and likewise faces federal fees for allegedly threatening to explode males who had been having an argument in a bunch chat posted on TikTok and different apps.
DHS talked about each of these arrests in its launch, saying the case “marks the third arrest of an Afghan nationwide terrorist launched into the nation by the Biden administration in lower than per week.”
Rahmatullah Nabil, who beforehand ran Afghanistan’s safety directorate, raised questions concerning the arrest on X, saying Safi, who DHS mentioned misplaced his Non permanent Protected States to reside within the US, deserves recognition for “his work in counter-terrorism, figuring out extremist networks, and dealing with intelligence sources.”
A professional-Taliban website in an X submit claimed Safi was a “pawn” and an oppressor whose household had offered help for ISIS.
