EXCLUSIVE — A congressman is raising national security concerns over how an Afghan man who had “unrestricted access” to Taliban commanders scored a visa to enter the United States.
The man, Emran Rahimi, arrived at Virginia’s Dulles International Airport in early October and has since traveled to North Carolina, according to a letter that Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), a House Foreign Affairs Committee member, sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. Rahimi did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment.
Rahimi, whose YouTube account is filled with videos of his travels and meetings with Taliban officials, received a U.S. visa in September at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, and came to the U.S. by way of Turkey, according to Burchett and Vets4NRF, a U.S. military veterans group. Rahimi boasted about obtaining a U.S. visa in a YouTube video posted on his account in late September. He has roughly 12,000 subscribers on the platform.
Vets4NRF, which provided Burchett with information about Rahimi, is comprised of “bipartisan American veterans who served in the post 9/11 wars” who are “dedicated to promoting a mutually beneficial partnership between the United States and Afghanistan.” The organization is led by an Afghan-American U.S. Army veteran who goes by the pseudonym Legend. The veteran uses a pseudonym due to his close contacts in Afghanistan and is involved with the anti-Taliban resistance. The veteran is often a source for lawmakers investigating Afghanistan-related issues.
Burchett’s letter to Blinken comes just after the FBI’s announcement on Tuesday of charges filed against another Afghan man who had entered the U.S. in 2021 amid the failed Kabul airlift. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was arrested by federal police in Oklahoma City for allegedly planning a large-scale attack targeting Americans on Election Day. He had allegedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which the U.S. government has declared a foreign terrorist organization.
Rahimi, the Afghan man highlighted by Burchett, “has been authorized to enter restricted areas controlled by the Taliban and the Haqqani network, including terrorist training camps and the residences of former senior government officials,” Burchett claimed in his letter.
He cited videos on Rahimi’s YouTube account that Burchett’s office and Vets4NRF said depicted the Afghan appearing alongside and sympathetically interviewing Taliban officials, including Maulvi Ghulam Haider Shahama. The Taliban official was listed in 2023 as the general directorate of the Technical and Vocational Education Authority.
“This situation is especially alarming, considering that many evacuated members of the former Afghan military and their families live in the areas Mr. Rahimi has visited,” Burchett wrote in the letter to Blinken. “I am deeply concerned for their safety, as well as the well-being of the Afghan American community and U.S. veterans of the Global War on Terrorism, who have fought bravely against the Taliban terrorists for over two decades.”
In the letter, Burchett said Rahimi “has referred to Sirajuddin Haqqani — an FBI-wanted terrorist with a $10 million bounty — as ‘Caliph’ in YouTube videos.” Haqqani’s terrorist followers have long referred to him as “Caliph,” which most commonly refers to the head of the Islamic Caliphate, but is also a leadership title used by a number of Muslim groups.
The FBI lists “Khalifa (Boss) Shahib” as among Haqqani’s aliases. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed the title of “Caliph” when he ruled the so-called Islamic State.
“Very good,” Rahimi told a person he was interviewing, who appeared to be a Taliban official, in a video posted on his YouTube in March 2024, according to a Farsi translation by an independent translator. “So by the order of his excellency Caliph-Sahib Sirja-al-Din Haqqani, this directive has been issued and the recruitment and enlistment of forces have begun?”
Moreover, a since-deleted video posted on Rahimi’s YouTube account depicted him at a Taliban forces training facility. In a separate video posted by Rahimi in October 2023, he appeared to interview a Taliban official and asked him how many people he had killed.
“You personally, how many Americans or foreigners did you kill?” Rahimi asked the Taliban official in the video, according to a Farsi translation.
“Maybe I did not kill anyone,” the Taliban official replied, to which Rahimi pushed back and said, “Is it possible? You said you engaged in jihad against occupation.”
In his letter, Burchett said it’s clear Rahimi “has consistently provided favorable coverage of sanctioned Taliban leaders, effectively aiding in the promotion of their extremist agenda.”
Burchett called on the State Department to “closely monitor Mr. Rahimi’s activities and affiliations” due to potential national security concerns. The State Department declined to comment to the Washington Examiner.
Regardless of the type of visa that Rahimi entered on, the Department of Homeland Security and its agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, would have screened Rahimi’s background for red flags.
Screeners have access to classified databases, which flag criminals and people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list to avoid admitting a dangerous person into the U.S. Governments share database information — though data from Afghanistan’s government may be hard to come by for U.S. screeners, given the Taliban’s control of that country.
Biometric data, such as fingerprints and facial scans, are collected during the screening process, but can only be scanned against available data to U.S. officials — leaving Rahimi’s YouTube commentaries and travel possibly overlooked.
The next step would have been vetting, which refers to the in-person interview, during which a federal official determines if the applicant is who he or she claims to be and whether the person poses a national security risk to the U.S. Vetting refugees and immigrants became an admission requirement after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Rahimi’s admission into the country comes three years after more than 120,000 Afghans made it out of the country amid the U.S. military withdrawal in August 2021.
The Taliban overthrew the U.S.-backed Ghani government in Afghanistan about two weeks ahead of the U.S. military’s withdrawal at the end of August 2021, after two decades of war.
President Joe Biden had pledged to evacuate U.S. allies who helped troops during the 20-year war on terror. The U.S. government had created a special visa category, known as the Special Immigrant Visa program, for those who helped the U.S. during the war. Obtaining this type of visa required going through a 14-step process. The government was so behind on approving applications in the lead-up to that August that just 750 of the 20,000 applicants were in the final stage of the process.
Afghans rushed the airport in an attempt to get out of the country while U.S. troops were evacuating people who had helped the U.S. during the war. Despite Biden’s statements that the administration would rescue those who were visa recipients, the administration airlifted tens of thousands of additional people who have not been approved for visas and are not in the process of applying for them.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House’s National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.
The FBI declined to comment.