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Taliban mouthpiece was an FBI informant
As the voice of the Taliban on American television, Noorullah Zadran came to his calling with impeccable credentials. With a flowing black beard, Ivy League degree and sonorous command of English, he projected the cultured face of a true believer.Zadran smiled serenely into a PBS camera in August 1998, hours after Cruise missiles rained on Osama bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan in retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. "We would like to see hard evidence," he said, "to convince us they were terrorist camps." Bin Laden, he insisted, was "the guest of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with the understanding that no act of terror would be initiated from our soil." Until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks proved his assurances hollow, Zadran seemed to speak with authority. Appointed seven years ago as first secretary of the Taliban's diplomatic mission to the United Nations, the Afghan-born, naturalized U.S. citizen had gone from cab driver to the regime's second-highest ranking official in the U.S. Behind his diplomatic pose, though, was a hidden pursuit. Zadran, 53, had avoided prison in a federal smuggling case by turning FBI informant. For three years, he offered intelligence on the Taliban's hierarchy and terrorist operations in Afghanistan even as he served as the regime's American representative. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-05-08 |
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