Haji Najibullah, a former Taliban commander, was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in the kidnapping of an American journalist and for supporting terrorist attacks that killed U.S. service members in Afghanistan.
Najibullah, 50, pleaded guilty in April 2025 to hostage-taking and providing material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death.
Federal prosecutors said Najibullah commanded Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province, west of Kabul, from 2007 to 2009. During that period, forces under his command carried out attacks against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops using improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and suicide bombers.
Prosecutors said Taliban fighters under Najibullah’s command ambushed a U.S. military convoy in Wardak on June 26, 2008, killing U.S. Army Sergeants First Class Matthew L. Hilton and Joseph A. McKay, Sgt. Mark Palmateer and their Afghan interpreter. Several other service members were wounded.
Najibullah also admitted participating in the November 2008 kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde, Afghan journalist Tahir Ludin and driver Asadullah Mangal. The three men were held captive for more than seven months in Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan before Rohde and Ludin escaped. Mangal was released shortly afterward.
The FBI arrested Najibullah in Ukraine in 2020, and he was extradited to the United States to face prosecution in the Southern District of New York.
