Muslim Dost denies being ISIS emir

KABUL Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost on Sunday confirmed allegiance to ISIS, but said he had not been appointed as Emir of Khurasan by the group.

Pakistani media reported on Saturday that ISIS had appointed Muslim Dost, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, as Emir of Khurasan, which the group says “covers a huge area in Asia, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia.”

Muslim Dost was the first person in the region to endorse the group after its establishment.

In a statement to Pajhwok Afghan News, he strongly rejected the reports. “A number of foreign conspirators are behind these unfounded reports, which are aimed at creating problems for me,” the statement quoted Muslim Dost as saying.

He said he had pledged allegiance to the ISIS “keeping in mind the need for the establishment of Islamic Caliphate,” but he had not been appointed as Emir of Khurasan.

He said if the ISIS intended to appoint someone as Emir of Khurasan, such a decision would come from the group’s central leadership.

In 2006, Dost was arrested by Pakistani forces for allegedly having ties with the Taliban and later handed him over to American forces. He was held in extrajudicial detention for four years in the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba.

A resident of the Batikot district of eastern Nangarhar province, Muslim Dost, wrote his account on his stay at Guantanamo, “The Broken Chains.”

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