Journos ask for trouble, says Taliban apologist Timothy Weeks

Timothy Weeks, the Australian academic held hostage by the Taliban for three years, has ­accused prominent Australian journalists of asking for trouble and being ‘no better than hired mercenaries’.

Timothy Weeks. Picture: TOLOnews

Timothy Weeks, the Australian academic held hostage by the Taliban for three years, has ­accused prominent Australian journalists – including one detained in Kabul in July and forced to publicly apologise by the hardline ­regime for her reporting – of asking for trouble and being “no better than hired mercenaries”.

Mr Weeks, who converted to Islam while being held hostage and now goes by the name Jibra’il Umar, has been a vocal advocate of the Taliban regime since he returned to Afghanistan this month to “celebrate” the one-year anniversary of the insurgents ousting the elected government and ­imposing their draconian rule.

His criticism of progressive ­Afghans and Western journalists has escalated in recent days, with attacks on Afghan Australian BBC presenter Yalda Hakim and Foreign Policy’s Lynne O’Donnell, as well as Afghan academic Obaidullah Baheer.

In tweets at the weekend, linked to the Twitter accounts of Hakim and O’Donnell, Umar suggested both women deliberately put themselves in harm’s way to prove their criticisms of the Taliban.

Umar, who has been open about his battles with post traumatic stress disorder, falsely identified Baheer as the anonymous Afghan academic whose account of being tortured by the Taliban features in Australian photojournalist Andrew Quilty’s book on the Taliban takeover, and highlighted Baheer’s support for “feminism and LGBT rights”. “These people ­actively seek to put themselves in a ‘I told you’ situation,” Umar wrote. “Baheer got a visa, Yalda a job and Lynne money. They are no better than hired mercenaries and this is the truth the world must realise.”

Hakim was among the first Western journalists to return to Afghanistan after the fall of the US-backed Ashraf Ghani government and has lobbied consistently, including through her eponymous foundation, for the Taliban to reopen girls’ high schools.

O’Donnell, a former correspondent for The Australian who also spent years as a journalist in Kabul, has described her detention by the Taliban as a “darkly satirical experience” but told the ABC World program last month “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid”.

“I was in a very unpredictable situation. The Taliban since they’ve taken over have dis­appeared, detained, beaten and killed people with impunity.”

O’Donnell declined to comment on the attacks by Umar, who told The Australian he was unwilling to speak publicly out of concern for his ailing father.

Baheer, a UNSW alumnus whom Umar has attacked online for questioning why the Taliban would roll out the red carpet for him even as it brutalises Afghan journalists, told The Australian he feared Umar’s public attacks would put a target on the backs of those he criticises. “He can’t cause harm to me, hopefully, but someday he will hurt some Afghan who can’t protect himself.”