Taliban Supporters Target Journalist Sami Yusufzai After Critical Report
After a critical report on how Taliban authorities handled Turkey’s intelligence chief, several figures and users close to the administration launched a coordinated campaign against journalist and political analyst Sami Yusufzai on the social platform X. In these attacks, he was accused of “espionage” and working with Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
On Thursday, 2 Mizan, Yusufzai wrote on X that Taliban officials in Kabul had told the head of Turkish intelligence that the issues he was pursuing should be raised in Kandahar, because, according to him, they were beyond the authority of the leadership based in Kabul.
According to Yusufzai’s report, although the Turkish intelligence chief had been invited to Kandahar, the Taliban leader declined to meet him at the last moment and said: “They are Westerners, do not bring them to my office.” He added that a meeting was then held with Mullah Shirin, the governor of Kandahar, in the “Mosque of Mullah Omar,” a setting he said was undiplomatic for a meeting with a senior foreign official.
Yusufzai also wrote that after this visit, the head of Turkish intelligence told Pakistan that expecting “logical behavior” from the Taliban administration was tantamount to deceiving oneself.
Following the publication of this report, figures and users aligned with the Taliban administration reacted. A user named Hajran Omari posted an image and message on X, targeting Yusufzai with verbal attacks and claiming that, contrary to his assertion of independence, he was promoting Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
Qari Saeed Khosti, head of the registration of jihad-era documents and artifacts at the Taliban administration’s Ministry of Information and Culture, also repeated similar allegations after resharing the same message. He called Yusufzai a “two-faced spy” and claimed the journalist was conducting propaganda in favor of Pakistan’s intelligence service under the cover of ordinary reporting.
According to observers, this type of reaction shows that Taliban supporters, instead of responding to critical media reports about meetings and diplomatic relations, target writers with political and security accusations. Sami Yusufzai is one of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s well-known journalists, and his reporting has repeatedly attracted attention from regional and international media in recent years.
