London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Jul 26, 2025

Kabul Airport suicide attacker was freed by Taliban after four years in CIA custody for New Delhi terror plot

Kabul Airport suicide attacker was freed by Taliban after four years in CIA custody for New Delhi terror plot

Abdul Rehman, a former engineering student with roots in Afghanistan’s Logar province and the son of a merchant who frequently visited New Delhi on business, was freed from Bagram prison on 15 August
The Islamic State suicide bomber who killed at least 169 Afghan civilians and 13 United States soldiers outside Kabul airport last month was incarcerated in Afghanistan’s notorious Bagram prison for the past four years, thanks to Indian efforts, Firstpost has learnt through credible intelligence sources.

Senior Indian intelligence sources familiar with the case have told Firstpost that he was handed over to the United States' Central Intelligence Agency by the Research and Analysis Wing in September 2017. However, the jihadist walked free on 15 August along with thousands of other dangerous terrorists held in the high-security prison, taking advantage of the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of the United State's hurried exit and the Taliban's swift takeover of the entire country.

Identified as Abdul Rehman, the jihadist was a former student of an engineering college in India and hailed from Afghanistan’s Logar province. He was the son of an Afghan merchant who frequently visited India for business.

His arrest had led to the termination of a plot by the Islamic State of Khurasan Province (IS-K) -- the Islamic State’s regional wing in Afghanistan -- to stage suicide bombings in New Delhi and other cities across the region, probably on the behest of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI).

"America’s disorganised retreat from Afghanistan has led to hundreds of highly-competent and highly-committed terrorists being set free to rejoin the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups," one officer who worked on the Abdul Rehman case said.

"Literally a decade’s work on counter-terrorism has been undone by the US' failure to secure key prisoners in Bagram," he said adding that the consequences of this failure will be "very far-reaching."

The Islamic State’s South Asia magazine, Sawt al-Hind (or Voice of the Indian Subcontinent) also confirmed in this weekend's edition that the suicide bomber had earlier been arrested in New Delhi, in the course of a failed suicide-bombing plot.

The said plot was first brought into the public domain by The Indian Express in 2018 and was first detected in mid-2017 by the CIA, which had picked up intelligence from communications of IS leadership in Afghanistan and their financial support networks in Dubai.

Rehman was selected to lead the plot because of his familiarity with New Delhi, which the jihadist had visited on several occasions in connections with his family business.

Rehman, the sources said, arrived in India under cover of studying at an engineering institute in Noida. After staying in the institute’s hostel for some weeks, he moved to a flat in New Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar neighbourhood. Intercepted communications allowed RAW to insert an agent posing as a jihadist in Rehman's circle, who pretended to be furthering the plot by sourcing explosive devices and recruiting personnel.

Sources said that the Delhi Police’s counter-terrorism unit, which was led by now-Deputy Commissioner of Police Pramod Kushwaha, had conducted on-ground surveillance against Rehman for several weeks before his arrest.

RAW’s agent, the sources said, persuaded Rehman that he had recruited multiple suicide attackers and sourced enough explosives to conduct the attacks. This generated a lot of chatter in the extremists' network and caused multiple communication between the Afghan jihadist and his commanders, which the CIA was able to exploit.

Instead of prosecuting Rehman in India, the sources said, a decision was taken to extradite him to Kabul on a special flight, to facilitate the CIA's investigation. In Bagram, he was questioned by the CIA and Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. The questioning led to the elimination of multiple Islamic State leaders in United States drone strikes till 2019.

"There’s no clarity on what happened to Abdul Rehman between his escape from Bagram and the suicide attack," one intelligence official said. "It is possible he wanted revenge, or that he was persuaded by his old jihadist friends to atone for his role in the killings of his associates in this manner."

The New Delhi suicide-bombing plot, the sources said, had begun to take shape in the summer of 2016, soon after the Islamic State’s military shura, or council, picked jihad commander Aslam Faruqi to lead the organisation. A 1977-born ethnic Pashtun from Bara, in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Faruqi had joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and operated with its units alongside the Taliban from 2007 to 2014, before leaving for Syria to join the Islamic State.

According to Antonio Giuztozzi's writings, Faruqi returned to Pakistan in 2016 and was later appointed as the leader of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, as a “result of contacts with the Pakistani ISI, which hinted to IS-K the possibility of a trade-off: the appointment of a leader linked to the ISI and the cessation of attacks against Pakistani government targets, in return for access to safe havens in Pakistan."

The Islamic State’s rapprochement with the ISI was brokered by Azizullah Haqqani, the leader of an Islamic State unit that in turn had close links to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of a Taliban terrorist network responsible for multiple, lethal suicide attacks across Afghanistan and who is now the interior minister of the country.

Immediate command of the New Delhi suicide operation, the sources said, rested with Amir Sultan, an ethnic-Punjabi jihadist also known by the alias Huzaifa al-Bakistani. Amir Sultan was given charge of a unit within the Islamic State, which was responsible for recruiting operatives in India, particularly in Kashmir, and for motivating them to carry out attacks in the region.

Amir Sultan’s unit included several Indian nationals, among them the only citizens of the country to stage suicide attacks overseas were dentist Ijas Kallukettiya Purayil, who was killed in a bid to storm a prison in Jalalabad last year, and his fellow Kerala resident, Muhammad Muhsin.

Last month, Firstpost had revealed that Aijaz Ahanger, Amir Sultan’s father-in-law and an ethnic Kashmiri jihadist with a long record of terror activities in Kashmir, had also escaped from Bagram prison.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
×