NewLines Magazine, 15 September 2021
A fascinating article we had missed then, about the said unit – describing, for example, how it killed Uzbek warlord from Takhar province, Piram Qul, “one of the last dominoes that needed to fall if the insurgents were to sweep across the north and trigger a decisive advance on Kabul.” According to this article, the Taleban learned about the use of drones from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the unit – “established sometime around 2019” – was led by a former “student in Kabul University’s faculty of engineering during the U.S. occupation.” Other former members of the unit said they “worked for Western NGOs before joining the drone team.” The drones, they claimed were purchased through “a private Afghan front company that imported agricultural chemicals and farming equipment from China.”
One member “interviewed for this article said another potential operation in Kunduz, this time against U.S. troops, was called off after U.S. service members spotted the drone and relayed a complaint to the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, noting that it would violate the terms of the nationwide withdrawal agreement the Trump administration struck with the Taliban in February 2020.”
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This article was last updated on 7 Jun 2025
