A senior al Qaeda official has called on the Taliban to kidnap foreign civilians in Afghanistan to force U.S.-led forces to negotiate prisoner exchanges, a former Australian police counter-terrorism analyst said.
The directive has been issued by veteran al Qaeda adviser Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu Walid al Masri, and stems from the U.S. detentions in Guantanamo Bay, Leah Farrall told Reuters on Wednesday.
Farrall, who had worked for the Australian Federal Police, said she had found the al Qaeda internet document, written in late July, while completing a PhD on al Qaeda at Monash University in Australia.
The document, “The U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan – the first step for the release of all prisoners of the war on terror,” argues the capture of a U.S. soldier earlier this year should serve as a precedent in a campaign of abducting Western civilians to negotiate the release of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners.
Farrall said the document rallies against the U.S. treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and calls on the Taliban to treat their enemy the same, citing examples of kidnapping campaigns by Hamas and Hezbollah.
