Taliban is using US-made hand-scanners and using its database to crack down on Afghans that helped allied forces or worked with Indian intelligence.
Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders of the Taliban’s Al Nisha unit, which is using US data to hunt down Afghans that help the US and Nato allies, said: “American, NDS [Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security] and RAW’s [India’s Research and Analysis Wing] puppets won’t be let off. They will always be watched by Al Isha.”
Nawazuddin Haqqani, in an exclusive interview with Zenger News, said the unit is using US-made hand-scanners and using its database to crack down on Afghans that helped allied forces or worked with Indian intelligence.
Over the last 12 years, virtually every Afghan that worked with the previous government or with the US forces as interpreters, drivers, nurses, and secretaries were scanned for the biometric database. Therefore, the database going into the hands of the Taliban is significant.
There were a total of 7,000 hand-held scanners and the US has not yet confirmed how many have been left behind, India Today reported.
“Now that Kabul is taken, operational work has taken a back seat and we’ve turned our focus on counterintelligence, While most of the brigade is now resting in different madrassas [Islamic religious schools], the Al Isha group is now the principal agency handling this [biometric] data project,” Nawazuddin Haqqani told Zenger News.
Housed in the Ministry of Interior in Kabul, the US database included fingerprints, iris scans among other data.
Now that the database is in the hands of the Taliban, Nawazuddin Haqqani said, “The group [Al Isha] just keeps an eye that if someone has worked for America or the National Directorate of Security [the former Afghan government’s intelligence agency]. The matter [data collection and making of the list] is being blown out of proportion by the foreign media and its nothing more than a campaign to malign us.”
Nawazuddin Haqqani, when questioned about Pakistan’s involvement in the Al Isha unit, said if any Indian intelligence is identified by the unit in Afghanistan, Pakistan could pursue it.
“The Afghan Taliban are incapable of handling the biometric equipment or the database. Every search party is overseen by a Pakistani officer or a member of the Haqqani Network,” said a 26-year-old former Afghan National Army corps commander. He also confirmed the Al Isha unit is scanning everyone with the biometric scanners.
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