A former Taliban commander who once led a thousand militants has pleaded guilty in a New York court to hostage-taking and providing material support for terrorism. The guilty pleas came almost twenty years after the abduction of an American journalist and the killing of three U.S. soldiers during the bloody insurgency in Afghanistan. The sentence hearing for Haji Najibullah was scheduled for later this year.

1. Introduction

On April 25, 2025, Haji Najibullah entered a federal courtroom in New York “wearing tan prison garb and a dark-colored skullcap” according to journalist Colin Moynihan writing for The New York Times. (here) The former commander of a thousand Taliban fighters faced charges that related to events in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost twenty years ago. After pleading guilty to hostage taking and providing material support for terrorism, Mr. Najibullah told Judge Katherine Polk Failla he was “about 49” and could spend the rest of his life in prison. Speaking through an interpreter, he acknowledged that American solders were killed “as a result of the material support I provided to the Taliban” and that he participated in the hostage taking of an American journalist so demands could be made for ransom and the release of Taliban prisoners held by the U.S. government. “I created proof-of-life videos of David Rohde and his companions in which they were forced to convey the Taliban’s demands,” he said. (here and here)

2. The Allegations

There were two Indictments filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York. The first was filed on June 17, 2014, and styled as U.S. v. Haji Najibullah, Akhund Zada and Timor Shah. (here) The second, a Superseding Indictment, was filed on October 2, 2021, and styled as U.S. v. Haji Najibullad. (here) I have taken the following extracts from the Superseding Indictment to give you a summary of the background and key allegations.

• [T]he Taliban was an Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary organization and political movement based principally in Afghanistan, dedicated to the imposition of strict Islamic law, or “sharia,” in Afghanistan. The Taliban engaged in a deadly insurgency campaign to regain control of Afghanistan after losing power in 2001 as a result of the U.S.- and NATO-led invasion of Afghanistan, which was also known as Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan. As part of that campaign of violence beginning in early 2000s, the Taliban conducted numerous suicide bombings, targeted killings, assassinations, improvised explosive device (“IED”) attacks, paramilitary ambushes, and hostage takings against the then-government of Afghanistan, U.S. military forces and their NATO and Afghan partners (collectively, the “Coalition”), and American civilians. (paras. 1-2)
• [I]n or about 2007, Haji Najibullah […] served as the Taliban commander responsible for the Jaghato district in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province, which borders Kabul. In this role, Najibullah commanded more than a thousand fighters, at times acted as a spokesperson for the Taliban, and reported to senior leadership in the Taliban. (para. 3)
• Najibullah commanded Taliban fighters who conducted attacks intended to kill and which did kill American and NATO troops and their Afghan allies, using automatic weapons, IEDs, rocket-propelled grenades (“RPGs”), and other anti-tank weapons, including an attack that destroyed an Afghan Border Patrol outpost in or about September 2008. (para. 4.a)
• On or about June 26, 2008, Taliban fighters under Najibullah’s command attacked a U.S. military convoy in the vicinity of Sayed Abad, Wardak Province, Afghanistan, with IEDs, RPGs, and automatic weapons (the “June 2008 Convoy Attack’), killing three U.S. Army servicemembers, Sergeants First Class Matthew L. Hilton and Joseph A. McKay, and Sergeant Mark Palmateer, and their Afghan interpreter (“Afghan Victim-1”). (para. 4.b)
• On or about October 27, 2008, Taliban fighters under Najibullah’s command shot down a U.S. military helicopter using RPGs in the vicinity of Sayed Abad, Wardak Province, Afghanistan (the “2008 Helicopter Shootdown’). The Taliban subsequently claimed responsibility for downing the helicopter, asserting that it was “shot down [by] the majahideen of the Islamic Emirate.” The Taliban also falsely claimed that “[a]ll those onboard were killed,” when, in fact, no troops died as a result of the attack. (para. 4.c)
• On or about November 10, 2008, Haji Najibullah […] caused a United States national who was a journalist and two Afghan citizens who were assisting the journalist to be detained by a group of machinegun-toting men in Afghanistan. On or about November 15, 2008, Akhund Zada […] was part of a group of approximately six armed guards who forced the American journalist and the two Afghan citizens to hike across the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan. On or about November 19, 2008, while in Pakistan, Najibullah and an unnamed co-conspirator directed the American journalist to call his wife in New York using a satellite telephone. In or about April 2009, while in Pakistan, Najibullah recorded a video of the American journalist begging for help while the barrel of a machinegun was pointed at his face. (paras. 6.f.g.h and 27)

In Exhibit A to the plea agreement dated April 22, 2025, Mr. Najibullah acknowledged his guilty pleas to counts 2 and 11 in the Superseding Indictment and admitted that he “provided material support to acts of terrorism”; that Taliban fighters under his command carried out “attacks against U.S. servicemembers, NATO troops, and/or Afghan allies”; and, that he “intentionally seized and detained” the hostages “in order to compel ransom payments”. (here) The sentence hearing was scheduled for October 23, 2025. The total maximum term of imprisonment on counts 2 and 11 is life imprisonment.

3. Conclusion

Mr. Rohde, a former Reuters correspondent, was in the gallery for the plea proceeding. “I am pleased that he admitted his guilt today and grateful to all the U.S. officials who brought him to justice,” he said in an email to the Associated Press. He and former Times reporter and Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin, were kidnapped when on the way to interview a Taliban leader. They escaped from a Taliban-controlled compound in Pakistan seven months after their abduction. In a controversial move with cooperation from other media outlets, the Times suppressed news that one of its reporters had been kidnapped by the Taliban although details cropped up on the internet. Writing for the Times, journalist Richard Pérez-Peña said “executives believed that publicity would raise Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors as a bargaining chip and reduce his chance of survival.” (here) However, Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, said Wikipedia’s cooperation in sanitizing the coverage was not a given. “We were really helped by the fact that [the story] hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” he said. “I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.”