In the face of the fact that President Biden has consistently claimed that the terrorist group al Qaeda that attacked America and murdered roughly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, was either gone or degraded in Afghanistan, on Monday the man who served as al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s head of security returned to his home in Afghanistan to a hero’s welcome.
“Dr. Amin al Haq, the former head of bin Laden’s Black Guard, was captured on video in a large convoy as it traveled through a checkpoint in Nangarhar province. Haq was accompanied by a large convoy of heavily armed Taliban fighters in brand new SUVs. A small crowd flocked to Haq to shake his hand and take selfies with him. The video of al Haq is evidence that Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan,” FDD’s Long War Journal reported.
Dr. Amin-ul-Haq, a major al-Qaeda player in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden security in charge in Tora Bora, returns to his native Nangarhar province after it fell to the Taliban. Dr. Amin became close to OBL in the 80s when he worked with Abdullah Azzam in Maktaba Akhidmat. pic.twitter.com/IXbZeJ0nZE
— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) August 30, 2021
“It was not immediately clear if al Haq was returning to his home in eastern Afghanistan for the first time, or if he has been in Afghanistan the entire time since being released from Pakistani custody,” the Long War Journal added.
On August 20, Biden claimed, “Look, let’s put this thing in perspective. What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as — as well as — getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.”
“Following Biden’s remarks, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters, ‘We know that al Qaeda is a presence, as well as ISIS, in Afghanistan, and we’ve talked about that for quite some time,’” CNN reported.
Biden has been bragging about how the Obama-Biden administration “degraded” al Qaeda in Afghanistan for months; on April 14, Biden stated, “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking. We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is degraded in Iraq — in Afghanistan.”
On April 28, in his address to a joint session of Congress, Biden stated, “If you’ve been to the upper Kunar Valley, you’ve kind of seen the gates of hell. And we delivered justice to bin Laden. We degraded the terrorist threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”
On August 16, Biden bragged, “We did that. We severely degraded al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and we got him. That was a decade ago.”
“As leader of the Black Guard, al Haq accompanied Osama bin Laden during the 2001 battle at Tora Bora in Nangarhar province. Al Haq helped the Al Qaeda emir and other senior al Qaeda leaders escape the U.S. and Afghan militia assault on the cave complex and flee to Pakistan,” the Long War Journal reported.
The New York Times reported on August 17:
Islamist radicals all over the world will get “a much-needed boost” from the Taliban’s victory over the Great Satan, the United States, said Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College London. “The supporters of Al Qaeda are all celebrating this,” he said. “It’s a victory over America, which is what they hope to achieve — these fighters coming down from the mountains to defeat the United States. A lot of groups will piggyback on this victory in propaganda terms — if the Taliban can do it, you can do it.”
Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, NBC News noted, “Pakistan recently freed a senior al-Qaida commander who was also an Osama bin Laden bodyguard, raising concerns about the country’s commitment to tackling terrorism, media reports say. Dr. Amin al Haq was freed several weeks ago because Pakistani officials could not prove his ties to al-Qaida and because he is not in good health, according to an Afghan Islamic Press report cited by other news organizations.”