Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost

Afghan journalist and ISIS K senior leader (born 1960)

Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost (Urdu: عبد الرحیم مسلم دوست; born 1960) is an Afghan Salafi jihadist militant who served primarily with the Taliban, and later, as a founding member of ISIS–K. Dost's militancy began by age 19, when he left Afghanistan to join the Ikhwan, carrying out the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca, Saudi Arabia before most of the group were captured and executed, though he escaped to Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. By 1986, he had returned to Afghanistan to fight in the Soviet–Afghan War as a member of Jamaat al Dawah ila al Quran wal Sunnah, a Salafist forerunner to the Taliban. Following the Soviet withdrawal, he joined the Taliban as they ascended to power in the 1990s. During the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Dost was arrested and held in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was noted for his poetic writings. In April 2005, he was released following a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, and returned to Peshawar, but was quickly recaptured by the Pakistani ISI, before ultimately being released in a prisoner exchange between Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) in 2008. From his release from Pakistani custody through 2014, he was active with the Taliban in the Afghanistan Pakistan border region, until swearing allegiance to the Islamic State's Khorasan Province in 2014. In late 2015 he purportedly left ISIS–K and the life of militancy, publicly condemning the group's emir, Hafiz Saeed Khan, as "illiterate" for approving attacks on civilians, however he reportedly maintains his allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and the broader Islamic State.

In 1979, Dost was among those, led by Juhayman al Otaybi, who were involved in the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He was arrested after the Saudi government stormed the Mosque, but was somehow freed and fled to Peshawar, Pakistan.

Muslim Dost and his brother were captured on November 17, 2001, and later released on 17 April 2005 with no charges held against him. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 561. The allegations against Muslim Dost, in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, was that he was a member of the Jamaat al Dawa al Quran (JDQ) militant group, and served as a contact between that group and Al Qaeda. Muslim Dost acknowledged being a member of JDQ, but said he joined long ago, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Muslim Dost's brother was also a journalist; was also a held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo; was also released by the Americans following his Tribunal. Their presence in Guantanamo was discussed in the press prior the Department of Defense released the official list of detainee identities. Just as the heart beats in the darkness of the body, so I, despite this cage, continue to beat with life. Those who have no courage or honour consider themselves free, but they are slaves. I am flying on the wings of thought, and so, even in this cage, I know a greater freedom.|Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost

He has been noted for his poetry while detained by the American government and the lengths he went through to record it, ranging from scratching with a spoon onto polystyrene teacups to using rubbery pens, and has received much esteem in this regard. His account on his stay at Guantanamo, The Broken Chains, is currently being translated into English.

Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost was one of the 38 captives the Bush Presidency determined had not been enemy combatants after all. The Department of Defense refers to these men as No Longer Enemy Combatants. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost was freed on April 20, 2005, with sixteen other Afghans whose Tribunals had determined they were not enemy combatants. The Associated Press reported that their release ceremony was addressed by Afghan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari. Carlotta Gall of The New York Times reported that the Chief Justice encouraged the men to regard their detention as something sent from God. The reports stated that the Chief Justice warned the cleared men that a candid description of their detention could damage the chances of other Afghan captives to be released. Don't tell these people the stories of your time in prison because the government is trying to secure the release of others, and it may harm the release of your friends. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost was one of the three captives who chose to address the Press.]] Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the United States could not evade its obligation to conduct competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status. Subsequently, the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants—rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Muslim Dost chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. On March 3, 2006, in response to a court order from Jed Rakoff the Department of Defense published a sixteen page summarized transcript from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. According to Fox News, the US considered Muslim Dost "too old and sick to get back in the fight" and his intelligence value had been "maxed out".

On September 30, 2006, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that Muslim Dost had been arrested by Pakistani officials. The article quotes Muslim Dost's brother, who linked the arrest to criticisms of the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate's role in the capture of Guantanamo detainees. Muslim Dost's brother said he was arrested while leaving his Mosque. Local Peshawar Police Superintendent Iftikhar Khan denied any knowledge of Muslim Dost's arrest, but acknowledged Inter Services Intelligence officials may have executed a covert arrest.

In July 2014, Abdul Raheem Muslim Dost swore allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, and began recruiting fighters and distributing propaganda for its Khorasan branch in the Nuristan and Kunar provinces of Afghanistan, parts of the Afghan Pakistan tribal belt, and in some Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar. In a video released in 2014, Dost claimed to have had a vision about the reestablishment of the Caliphate, while in an interview with a journalist, Dost admitted being a supporter of the group, while denying reports he held an influential position in it. In late 2015, Dost publicly disassociated himself from ISIS in Khorasan, condemning the group's leadership and killings in Afghanistan. He reportedly maintained his allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and his self proclaimed Caliphate.