Taliban’s Intelligence Agency Arrests Group’s Social Media Influencer in Kabul

The Taliban’s intelligence agency has disarmed and arrested a social media influencer of the group, who introduces himself as "General Mobeen". Sources told Afghanistan International on Tuesday that the agency summoned Mobeen to Kabul and arrested him.

According to our sources, the Taliban’s intelligence agency has seized weapons, a bulletproof vehicle, and phones of this self-proclaimed "general".

Mobeen has previously worked as a spokesperson to the Taliban’s police chief of Kabul and has been considered a controversial figure of the Taliban on social media.

Over the past week, he appeared on Twitter and said that he regretted working with the Taliban as the spokesman.

Mobeen also criticised the Taliban and termed the group’s government as "Mullahcracy”. He insisted that professionals had to take government jobs and serve the people.

Previously, he had also been arrested after criticising Mullah Fazl-ur-Rehman, a political and religious leader in Pakistan, who has close ties with the Afghan Taliban.

After Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban about Iran’s water rights from the Helmand River, Mobeen filled a yellow barrel, which is considered a symbol of the Taliban’s hand-made bombs, and said that he would send one barrel of water to the Iranian president.

The video clip of Mobeen with the barrel had been circulated on social media among Afghans and Iranians and attracted wide attention in both countries.

Therefore, the news of his arrest has also been reflected in Iranian media as an anti-Iranian figure among the Taliban.