Taliban ‘earned millions in World Cup deal’

Qatar paid the group that provided machinery to build football stadiums to ‘facilitate West peace talks’

THE Taliban made millions from the World Cup by providing construction equipment to build stadiums in Qatar, The Daily Telegraph understands.

Senior Taliban officials used lucrative salaries tied to peace talks to buy and subcontract heavy machinery for tournament infrastructure over the past decade, a source in the Taliban’s Doha office revealed.

A large contingent of the Taliban leadership lived in Doha from 2013 onward where they were engaged in long-running peace talks with the US and UN. A source, who lived in Doha in the decade running up to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year, said: “The Taliban invested heavily in the World Cup construction and the tournament was a golden duck. They were paid millions.

“Some Taliban members had between six and ten pieces of heavy machinery each in Doha and would earn up to £10,000 per machine per month,” the source added.

Two separate senior Taliban sources described how officials were given lucrative allowances to live in the country during these negotiations, which was invested in construction machinery. It’s understood that the Qatari authorities – with the approval of the US and UN – paid members of the Taliban’s political office in Doha a monthly stipend worth thousands of pounds as part of efforts to help facilitate peace talks with the West. The visiting officials were also provided with luxury SUVS, free health care and regular food deliveries.

The money was initially paid in cash and later transferred into the Taliban officials’ bank accounts, making it difficult for US and Qatari authorities to track spending.

The Qataris claim the monthly payments were “monitored in coordination” with the US, “including the total amounts and how and where it was spent”. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing, or any involvement in the Taliban construction arrangements, by the Qatari authorities. Multiple sources allege that a Taliban middle-man living in Doha, Haji Ahmad Jan, the former minister of petroleum and mines in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, oversaw the leasing of machines to construction companies responsible for building the World Cup stadiums and infrastructure. Haji Ahmad Jan has been approached for comment.

“It was an open secret in the Afghan embassy in Doha that the Taliban negotiations team and political office were being paid well by the Qatari regime and they invested these salaries in construction equipment for the World Cup,” says one former senior Afghan diplomat in Doha.

“The Taliban’s Haqqani network even used to collect money and donations from Afghans based in other Arab states and promise them the money would be invested in the Qatar World Cup projects.”

The Taliban’s alleged links to the construction of the World Cup, while not improper or illegal, raises further questions of a tournament embroiled by controversy and labour abuse allegations. It is reported that more than 6,000 migrant workers died while labouring on stadia and infrastructure in Qatar, which the national government denies.

In response, a spokesman for the Taliban said: “We reject claims about the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan providing any construction machinery to the State of Qatar for the 2022 World Cup.

“No official of the Islamic Emirate has invested any ‘lucrative’ allowances/stipends on any heavy machinery and/or sub-contracted any such machinery to any Qatari firms.” A Qatari government official said: “The Taliban’s political office in Doha was established at the specific request of the US government in 2013, and in coordination with the former Afghan government, with the aim of fostering dialogue toward peace.

“The political office and its activities were monitored and engaged-with on terms agreed and coordinated with the United States. Accordingly, the United States had full visibility on all arrangements and matters with regard to hosting the Taliban political office in Qatar. Any measures taken or arrangements made were in compliance with Qatar’s obligations under international law, and under the relevant US and Qatari laws and regulations.”