Muhammad Hanif ( ps, محمد حنيف) (d. November 2008) was a media spokesman for the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

from October 2005 until his capture by

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

National Directorate of Security The National Directorate of Security (NDS; ps, د ملي امنیت لوی ریاست; prs, ریاست عمومی امنیت ملی) was the national intelligence and security service of Afghanistan. The headquarters of the NDS was in Kabul, ...

(NDS) on January 17, 2007. Hanif and

Yousef Ahmadi Qari Mohammad Yousef Ahmadi is one of the two Taliban spokesmen, the other being Zabiullah Mujahid. In 2006, Ahmadi contacted Reuters, the Associated Press, Canadian Press and Afghan Islamic Press by satellite phone to offer Taliban messages regar ...

were appointed in October 2005 after the previous spokesman, Latifullah Hakimi, was captured. His main tool of communication to news organizations was

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

. Shortly after the death of

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ( ar, أَبُو مُصْعَبٍ ٱلزَّرْقَاوِيُّ, ', ''Father of Musab, from Zarqa''; ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (, '), was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a t ...

, Hanif reached the press by means of a

satellite telephone A satellite telephone, satellite phone or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to other phones or the telephone network by radio through orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites, as cellphones do. The advantage of a ...

, and read a statement about the "martyr" which he claimed was written by

Mullah Omar Mullah Muhammad Omar (; –April 2013) was an Afghan Islamic revolutionary who founded the Taliban and served as the supreme leader of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Born into a religious family of Kandahar, Omar was educated at local '' ma ...

. On the day of his 2007 capture, Afghan intelligence officials released a recording of part of Hanif's interrogation. In this recording Hanif tells his interrogators that the Taliban's leader

was staying in the

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

i city of

Quetta Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه‎) is the tenth List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in Geography of Pakistan, south-west of the country close to the ...

under the protection of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. This claim was then denied by Pakistan. Muhammad Hanif was released from custody in 2008 as he apparently no longer had any contact with the Taliban. On November 28, 2008 it was reported Hanif and three of his relatives were assassinated at his home in Nangarhar Province.

References

External links

Photo of Muhammad Hanif
shortly after his capture, from

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

Taliban spokespersons 2008 deaths Year of birth missing People from Nangarhar Province Assassinated Afghan people {{Afghanistan-bio-stub

See also

References

External links