Interview with Colonel Imam, mentor of Mujahideen Taliban

Colonel Imam, who was a commando-guerrilla warfare specialist, had trained Mullah Omar and other Taliban shoora members during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He remained active in Afghanistan until the 2001 US invasion, and had since continued to support the Taliban publicly through media..Imam and Mullah Omar's personal relations went back to 1994 when Imam was abducted while accompanying a 30-truck convoy of goods to Turkmenistan through Kandahar during which Imam was arrested by Afghan warlord Amir Lalai in Kandahar on November 2, 1994. Omar and his fighters rescued Imam and Lalai was publicly executed by hanging..

On March 26, 2010 Imam was kidnapped in tribal areas of Pakistan by Pashtun warlords while shooting a documentary along with Khalid Khawaja, British journalist Asad Qureshi and their driver Rustam Khan..Qureshi and Khan were released on a 20 million ransom in September 2010, whereas Imam was killed in January 2011 due to Pakistan's refusal to pay up..Meanwhile, Mullah Omar sent a jirga to negotiate Imam's release but even they had to return empty handed since the kidnappers demanded money from them too..The head of the kidnappers Hakeemullah was in contact with Imam's family and they were negotiating his release but before they could sell their house and arrange for the money, it seems someone else paid the kidnappers to kill Col Imam..As usual, the self-proclaimed jihadists released a video saying they killed Imam because he was a CIA and ISI spy and blamed him for all the crimes of Musharraf, but this time there was no confession video like in the case of Khalid Khwaja..Colonel Imam, the legend, was too much of a man for them to get out a fake confession...