Abdur Rab Sayyaf

Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf
Sayyaf in 2014.
Born	1946 (age 70–71) Paghman Valley, Afghanistan
Other names	Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf Abd-i-Rab Rasoul Sayaf Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf
Known for	Afghan mujahideen, opposition to the Taliban, politician

Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf (/ɑːbˈduːl rəˈsuːl saɪˈjɑːf/ ahb-DOOL rə-SOOL sy-YAHF; Pashto: عبد رب الرسول سياف ‎, born 1946, Paghman Valley, Afghanistan) is an Afghan former mujahideen and current politician. He took part in the war against the PDPA government in the 1980s, leading the Afghan mujahideen faction Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan.

During the war, he received patronage from Arab sources and mobilized Arab volunteers for the mujahideen forces. Sayyaf is said to have been the one who first invited Osama bin Laden to take refuge in Afghanistan (Jalalabad), after bin Laden's 1996 expulsion from Sudan by the otherwise sympathetic Sudanese régime under Saudi, Egyptian, and American pressure.

In 2005, Sayyaf's Ittehad-al-Islami (or Islamic Union) was converted into the political party, the Islamic Dawah Organisation of Afghanistan. He has been considered a member of the Northern Alliance, despite his close relationship with militant groups such as Al-Qaeda that opposed it. He has also been accused of having knowingly assisted the two assassins that killed Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud in a suicide bomb blast two days before 11 September 2001.