By Annisa Essack

25:10:2020

Husam Abd al-Rauf, considered to be second in command of Al-Qaeda and a prominent figure on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, was killed late Saturday night by the Afghan military. According to government officials, the Afghan raid happened last week in Kunsaf, a village in Ghazni provinces Andar district some 150 kilometres south-west of Kabul. But details over the raid that led to al-Rauf’s alleged death remain murky.

The United States National Counter-terrorism Centre confirmed the elimination of al-Rauf calling it “a major setback” for the terrorist organisation

The reported death of Husam Abd al-Rauf, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhsin al-Masri, follows weeks of violence including a suicide bombing on Saturday at an education centre near Kabul that killed 24 people and injured 57 more, most of them young students. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, without offering any evidence.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government continues to fight Taliban insurgents even as peace talks in Qatar between the two sides take place for the first time.

The violence and al-Rauf’s reported killing threatens the face-to-face peace talks and risks plunging the nation beset by decades of war into further instability. It also complicates America’s efforts to withdraw, 19 years after it led an invasion after the 11 September attacks.

In December 2018, federal prosecutors in New York filed a warrant for al-Rauf’s arrest, accusing him of providing support to a foreign terrorist organisation and being part of a conspiracy to kill US citizens. He was put on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, which now includes 27 others.

If the Taliban had protected al-Rauf, that would violate the terms of its 29 February deal with the US that jump-started the Afghan peace talks. That deal saw the Taliban agree “not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies” which includes al-Qaeda.

Al-Rauf has served for years as Al-Qaeda’s media chief after years of remaining silent following the acknowledgement of Taliban founder Mullah Omar’s death he re-emerged in 2018 in an audio statement in which he mocked President Donald Trump and those who preceded him the White House.

Born in 1958, the red-headed al-Rauf, is an Egyptian national who according to an al-Qaeda-issued biography said he joined the Mujahedeen fighters who battled the Soviet Union in 1986.