FILE PHOTO: Ahmad Habibi and his younger brother Mahmood Habibi pose for the camera, Canada, 2014. Mahmood Habibi was taken hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan on August 10, 2022, the U.S. government says. Ahmad Shah Habibi/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -As a crowd looked on, uniformed Taliban surrounded the Toyota Landcruiser in which Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, sat. Other Taliban smashed open the door of his Kabul apartment, emerging later with his laptop and papers.
Blindfolded in the back seat, Habibi and his driver were driven off by gunmen sporting shoulder patches of the Taliban's feared secret police, the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), according to several witness statements in U.S. government possession seen by Reuters.
