Talk:Shahzada (Taliban commander)

reverting the conflation of Haji Shahzada (Guantanamo detainee 952) and Mullah Shahzada (Taliban commander)
I reverted this redirection because it seems to me that the wikipedian who made it was fooled by the surface similarity of these two individual's names.

Haji Shahzada, the landowner, dog-fancier, and cock-fighter, could not be Mullah Shahzada, the Taliban commander. Haji Shahzada was captured in 2003. Newspaper reports of the date of the release of Shahzada, the Taliban commander, span several years. But the earliest accounts have him being killed in combat when Haji Shahzada was still in Guantanamo. Dog-fighting and cock-fighting were serious crimes under the Taliban. Haji Shahzada's involvement in these activities would have precluded him being a member of the Taliban.

I am skeptical that the "former mujahedeen fighter" Shahzada, interviewed in Pakistan in 2002 is the same individual as the Taliban commander responsible for destroying the Buddhist statues. There is no hint in the New York Times interview that this Shahzada was going to return to the battlefield.

Shahzada seems to be a common name in Afghanistan.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 18:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Over ten years passed before this reply! I know that more is known now than then, so I'm just commenting for any other editors that come along.  The NYT interview. is dated 6 May 2003.  This is useful, as the Shahzada that was apparently ISN 367 was not released until two days later (in Kabul), so it simply can't be him.  Additionally, that Shahzada was from neighbouring Helmand, where a Mullah Shahzada died in 2005.  Incidentally, while the article may not have said that that Mullah Shahzada planed to reengage, it was titled "... Taliban Has a Resurgence" and comments that bracket his mention include "the talk is of war and the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan", "I am ready to fight, because jihad is the duty of every Muslim", and "young men speak openly of their desire to go to Afghanistan to fight."  Bromley86 (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

revert -- see talk
I put my explanation here. Geo Swan 01:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 22:20, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Zangiabad
AKA Zangabad, Afghanistan on Googlemaps. ~40km WSW of Kandahar. The source for a Mullah Shahzada coming from that village has a map on p.23 confirming its location. Bromley86 (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Just seen a different copy of My Life in the Taliban that includes the notes. Note 15 ties the Shahzada in that book to the one interviewed in Newsweek shortly before he died in May 2004: "Killed in Nelgham in the middle of the war". Nelgham (Nalgham, Afghanistan on googlemaps) is ~30k from where Newsweek reported Mullah Shahzada was, Arghandab. So I'm going to remove the "possibly" in his home village sentence. Bromley86 (talk) 22:33, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Oliver North
I didn't include his mention of Mullah Shahzada, as it's clearly an error (WashPo made the same mistake). There's no indication of his sourcing, and the U.S. government is a much better source than North, so we go with them over him. Although both Shahzada and the juvenile that he has mistaken him for, Muhammad Ismail Agha, were released and then went on to fight, there the similarity ends. Agha is reported to have been captured (although it was months, not weeks), rather than been killed. There's also the oddity of calling a boy "mullah"; see also the Newsweek item that has him as a senior commander meeting with Mullah Omar, which would be very odd.

Also, Mullah Shahzada Tajudin was a figure active in the 70s in Pakistan, so I've not mentioned him. Bromley86 (talk) 00:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)