A new National Geographic documentary has revived a striking claim about how the CIA closed in on Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s most feared military commander, before his death in 2007.
In “Tracking the Butcher,” an episode of the series Inside the CIA: Secrets and Spies that began streaming in February 2026, former CIA officer Darrell Blocker recounts a years-long pursuit of a Taliban leader known — even to his own men — as “the Butcher” for his brutality. According to the episode, the breakthrough came when a teenage boy from inside the commander’s circle was captured in a raid, providing intelligence that, combined with covert tracking technology, brought the agency close to its target.
Dadullah, an ethnic Pashtun commander from Kandahar province and a close aide to Taliban founder Mullah Omar, was killed in a joint Afghan-NATO operation in Helmand province in May 2007. Afghan officials at the time said the strike was based on precise intelligence, though the CIA’s specific role was not publicly detailed until now.
The practice referenced in the documentary, bacha bazi — the exploitation of boys by powerful men in parts of Afghanistan — has long been documented by outlets including PBS Frontline, the Guardian and the U.S. State Department as both a widespread abuse and, in some cases, a vulnerability exploited by intelligence services and rivals alike.