Mullah Abdul Rauf, a former Taliban commander and Gitmo detainee turned
ISIS recruiter, was killed Monday in a drone strike, officials said.
(CNN)— He was a
Taliban commander
captured by the United
States and held at
Guantanamo Bay. But
he was let go and
returned to Afghanistan.
Mullah Abdul Rauf went
on to become a recruiter
for ISIS in Afghanistan.
He was killed in a drone
strike Monday, two
officials told CNN.
Rauf and five others were killed, four of them Pakistani militants, said
Mohammed Jan Rasoulya, the deputy governor of southern Helmand province.
A senior Afghan security source confirmed Rauf's death.
The Washington Post, in a headline last month , called him "the shadowy figure
recruiting for the Islamic State in Afghanistan."
The New York Times called him the "militant commander at the center of the
concerns in Helmand Province" but said some local Taliban figures "dismiss
claims" that he had established "a significant new Islamic State cell in Helmand
Province."
He was known to many with the name "Khadim" tacked on to the end of his
name.
"Until 9/11, the hard-nosed Khadim commanded (Taliban creator) Mullah
Omar's elite mobile reserve force, fighting regime opponents all over
Afghanistan," Newsweek wrote of Rauf in a 2011 list of list of most-wanted
insurgents . "Arrested and sent to Guantanamo soon after the Taliban's
collapse, he was released in late 2007, having convinced his jailers that he
wanted only to go home and tend his farm. Escaping from house arrest in
Kabul, he fled to Pakistan."
Although the United States does not publicize the names of detainees at
Guantanamo, a document posted by WikiLeaks showed that the United States
recommended Rauf be "transferred to the control of another country for
continued detention" as early as 2004.
In a 2011 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
-- part of the Armed Services Committee -- a lawmaker asked about Rauf and
another former detainee.
Ed Mornston, director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, responded that "there have been instances where detainees
who have been transferred from Gitmo have reengaged and have been in the
fight and have impacted the lives of U.S. service members. We do track that. I
can't discuss that much further in this open session, but we do in fact know
that that has happened."