An Afghan man arrested in Virginia last week for allegedly providing material support to ISIS previously held a high-level national security position in his former country, The Post has learned.
Jaan Shah Safi was booked in Waynesboro, VA, and branded an “illegal alien terrorist” by the Department of Homeland Security, which announced Dec. 3 he had provided support to ISIS-K and “provided weapons to his father who is a commander of a militia group in Afghanistan.”
What the DHS announcement did not reveal was that Safi, 48, previously served as the deputy director of the National Directorate of Security, the former Afghan government’s version of the CIA, in the province of Nangarhar.
He was among thousands of Afghans who came to the US under the Biden Administration’s Operation Allies Welcome.
“He’s not just a soldier or just a commander. He was a very senior guy, Haibatullah Alizai, who served as chief of staff of the Afghan Army during the last days before the fall of Kabul, told The Post.
During another stint in Safi’s career he was “the most key intelligence guy in Kunar Province,” said Alizai, who said he and other Afghan expats were surprised by the arrest. “This family has always been a counterterrorism family. They are famous for that.”
The Trump Administration announced Safi’s stunning arrest just days after the arrest of alleged National Guard shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was charged with first degree murder for the killing of Sarah Beckstrom, 20, in Washington DC.
He pleaded not guilty.
“This terrorist was arrested miles from our nation’s capital where our brave National Guard heroes, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, were shot just days ago by another unvetted Afghan terrorist brought into our country,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.
Another Afghan man, Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, was arrested in Texas and also faces federal charges for allegedly threatening to blow up men who were having an argument in a group chat posted on TikTok and other apps.
DHS mentioned both of those arrests in its release, saying the case “marks the third arrest of an Afghan national terrorist released into the country by the Biden administration in less than a week.”
Rahmatullah Nabil, who previously ran Afghanistan’s security directorate, raised questions about the arrest on X, saying Safi, who DHS said lost his Temporary Protected States to live in the US, deserves recognition for “his work in counter-terrorism, identifying extremist networks, and handling intelligence sources.”
A pro-Taliban site in an X post claimed Safi was a “pawn” and an oppressor whose family had provided support for ISIS.
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