Meet the Shadowy Figure Recruiting for the Islamic State in Afghanistan

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Several reports in the last few days suggest that the Islamic State is now recruiting in southern Afghanistan, the spiritual heart of the Taliban and the site of fierce combat between U.S. troops and insurgents in recent years. At the center of it: a former Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee who led a Taliban unit before the U.S. sent forces into the country in 2001.

His name is Mullah Abdul Rauf, Afghan officials told the Associated Press on Monday. He is believed to operating in Helmand province, where coalition troops withdrew in October, according to a tribal leader in Sangin district.
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As the Long War Journal has pointed out, Rauf was eventually released and became a shadow governor in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan. He was never a foot soldier, but a member of Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s elite mobile reserve force before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Newsweek reported in 2011. He was believed to have a following of fighters in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.
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