KABUL: Australian Professor Timothy Weeks, aka Gabriel Omar, a former prisoner of the Taliban, has returned to Afghanistan, where he was received as a guest by the Taliban authorities.
Gabriel Omar, whose name was Timothy Weeks before converting to Islam after being abducted and released by the Taliban, was abducted by the Taliban from the main gate of the American University in Kabul in August 2016 and returned to Doha after being held captive by the Taliban for three and a half years. The deal resulted in his release in 2019 in exchange for three key Taliban commanders, including Anas Haqqani and Khalil Haqqani.
Timothy Weeks was an English teacher at the American University in Kabul. He was tasked with developing a curriculum to teach English to Afghan police officers. However, in the meantime, he was kidnapped by the Taliban.
The US forces conducted several raids on the intelligence base to recover him, but each time the Taliban successfully moved him to another location. He was finally released as a result of the Doha agreement.
There were also reports of Timothy Weeks being severely tortured and kept in very difficult conditions by the Taliban during his imprisonment. During his imprisonment, he developed cancer, which he was able to treat only after his release.
News of Timothy Weeks’ conversion to Islam came after his release, but the seeds of Islam had been planted in his heart as a result of reading translations of the Quran and other Islamic literature provided by the Taliban while in prison. According to some reports, he accepted Islam in the second year of his imprisonment and started following Islamic orders.
After his release, he moved to his native Australia, and after converting recovering from his illness, remained active on Twitter under the Islamic name Jibraeel Omar in Pashto and English.
He had expressed his desire many times to go back to Afghanistan, where he got the Islamic State, and serve the Afghan people.
He was received by Taliban officials on his arrival in Kabul today. He is expected to be involved in services in the education sector in Afghanistan.
