The Taliban’s high command has yet to issue a statement at its propaganda website, Voice of Jihad, on Osama bin Laden’s death. But an Afghan Taliban commander known as Dawran Safi claimed to have formed “special units for avenging the martyrdom” of bin Laden. From Al Jazeera (via a translation received by LWJ):
These men did not wait for their supreme command to comment on the loss of their ally – one during whose lifetime they did not abandon – and made clear threats to avenge him less than two days after it was announced that he was killed by the United States. Field commander Dawran Safi, who heads a council for coordinating among armed groups in eastern Afghanistan, said that bin Ladie’s death generated a new driving force for following in his footsteps.
“We created special units for avenging the martyrdom of Sheikh Osama bin Laden. We will avenge him and follow in his footsteps, and we will maintain the momentum of the jihad against foreign and agent forces.”
There is a Taliban commander who operates in Kunar who is known as Haji Mohammad Dawran Safi (he also goes by the name of Qari Dawat). It is unclear if he and the Safi quoted above are one and the same. That commander was targeted in an ISAF airstrike in December 2009, but he survived. He was responsible for the kidnapping of Paul Refsdal, a Norwegian journalist, in November 2009.
