Taliban Say They Do Not Know Fate of Afghan-American Mahmood Shah Habibi in Kabul
Taliban officials have said they do not know the fate of Mahmood Shah Habibi in Kabul.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban administration’s spokesman, said in response to an FBI report that the administration had no information about Habibi, an Afghan-American citizen and former head of Afghanistan’s aviation authority.
In response to a question about Habibi’s situation, Mujahid said: “We have no information about Mahmood Shah Habibi. He is not before the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. If he were, this problem would have been resolved long ago.”
The comments come after the FBI previously claimed that Habibi had been abducted. He remained in Afghanistan after the collapse of the former government and worked at the Asia Consulting Group in Kabul.
Habibi disappeared in Kabul in August 2022, four days after returning from a foreign trip. Reports have also said that he was accused by the Taliban administration of cooperating with the US Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, to identify the hiding place of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former leader of al-Qaeda, was killed in a US airstrike in Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan area a few days before Habibi’s disappearance. The US State Department also offered a $5 million reward in 2025 for information that would lead to finding Habibi’s location, returning him, or securing his release.
