KANDAHAR -- Afghan commandos arrested a German national working as an adviser for the Taliban in Helmand Province, officials said Thursday (March 1).
Commandos aided by the air force arrested the man and two others during a raid on a Taliban mine-making centre in Gereshk District Monday (February 26), officials said, adding that he was taken first to Camp Bastion and then on to Kandahar.
The man, who calls himself Abdul Wadood and was pictured wearing a black turban with a long, reddish beard, identified himself as a German resident of Frankfurt and spoke German, provincial officials and the Afghan army said.
He was serving as an adviser to Maulavi Nasir, the commander of the Taliban's elite "Red Unit" in Helmand, said Abdul Qadeer Bahadurzai, a spokesman for the 215th Corps of the Afghan National Army. A local police chief confirmed the claim.
Such units serve as the Taliban's special forces and have carried out many attacks on the Afghan army and police.
Bahadurzai told AFP Thursday that the man has no identity card or passport. German officials in Kabul had no immediate comment
The man is one of the few Europeans found among the militants throughout the 16-year war.
"This is the first time a European national has been arrested in Helmand," Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.
The man was a convert to Islam called "Thomas K." from Rhineland-Palatinate, near Frankfurt, reported the German newspaper Die Welt Thursday.
He had been known to German authorities since 2009 and had travelled to Afghanistan in 2013 to join the Taliban, according to the report.
