Tag: Haqqani network

Categories
-Top News Asia News

Pak Taliban appears to distance from Haqqani faction

If Pak govt does not agree to our demands, our fighters will wage jihad in entire country--Pakistan Taliban (TTP)(IN)

Rumours have it the TTP was also invited by Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani to Kabul, but the group declined the invitation…reports Asian Lite News

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) appears to have lost trust in the “Haqqani faction” of the Afghan Taliban, which is considered close to the Pakistani establishment, and instead seeks to align itself with the rival “Kandahari faction” led by Afghan Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob.

The TTP’s statement on ending the ceasefire with Pakistan government came hours after the Foreign Ministry said that Deputy Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will be leading a high-level delegation to Kabul for talks with Taliban officials, The Express Tribune reported.

Rumours have it the TTP was also invited by Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani to Kabul, but the group declined the invitation.

Some Afghan media reports also claimed that Mullah Yaqoob refused to meet the Pakistani delegation in Kabul, The Express Tribune reported.

A Defence Ministry official, however, denied such a meeting was ever planned.

There is a possibility that the TTP’s move might have been choreographed by the Kabul regime to use it as a pressure tactic in their talks with Khar and her delegation because they believe Pakistan is again ditching their regime after warming up to the US.

Minister Khalifa Sahib Sirajuddin Haqqani Hafizullah inaugurated the ANP Graduation Ceremony Pic credits @Zabehulah_M33

The TTP announced the truce collapse a day before Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa was to pass the baton of army command to his successor Gen Asim Munir.

This could be a reminder for the new army chief to revive the negotiation process which has stalled since the transfer of Lt Gen
Faiz Hameed out of Peshawar. Gen Munir has inherited far too many challenges in the politically volatile and economically near-bankrupt country, The Express Tribune reported.

There could also be a possibility that the TTP wants to break away from the Afghan Taliban after the loss of some of its big guns in recent months in Afghanistan, suspecting a role of the Kabul regime which has been under increasing pressure from Islamabad to dismantle TTP sanctuaries.

If that is the case, then we may next expect the TTP drifting towards the Khorasan enterprise of Islamic State (IS) terror group. And if that happens, the Taliban regime’s worst nightmare would come true, The Express Tribune reported.

The TTP knows that its alliance with the IS could create the most potent threat to the Taliban’s nascent regime and that it would try to prevent it at any cost. The TTP timed its truce collapse announcement with Khar’s arrival in Kabul to give a message to Islamabad that the Taliban would no longer speak or negotiate on its behalf. Or this could also be a message to Kabul to put pressure on the Pakistani side for a deal with the TTP.

Whatever may be the reason for its latest move, the TTP has zero motivation to give up violence and disband, especially following the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban in August 2021. Instead the group has been emboldened by the Taliban’s bewildering victory over foreign forces which gave it a hope that it could also bring the Pakistan government to its knees, The Express Tribune reported.

That was the reason the group stepped up attacks in the border regions of Pakistan following the fall of Kabul. It only agreed to engage with the government because the process was brokered by the Haqqanis with whom the group enjoyed close ideological affinity and organisational ties throughout the Taliban insurgency.

ALSO READ: US condemns Afghanistan blast that killed at least 16

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan Asia News

Taliban’s Sirajuddin Haqqani finally shows his face

Minister Khalifa Sahib Sirajuddin Haqqani Hafizullah inaugurated the ANP Graduation Ceremony Pic credits @Zabehulah_M33

“For your satisfaction and for building your trust… I am appearing in the media in a public meeting with you,” Haqqani said in a speech at the parade….reports Asian Lite News

 Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting minister of the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan and a longtime leader of the so-called Haqqani network with a US terrorist bounty on his head, has appeared in front of the media for the first time, RFE/RL reported.

Haqqani, nicknamed Khalifa, attended a graduation ceremony in Kabul for hundreds of newly-trained Afghan police on Saturday.

He also addressed the gathering, saying the fundamentalist militant group is committed to the Doha agreement signed with the United States in 2020 that paved the way to a pullout of US-led international troops that culminated in late August last year.

Haqqani told the graduating cadets that the world faces no threat from Afghanistan, the report said.

Haqqani has repeatedly praised suicide and some of the most notorious attacks on civilians and departed US forces since the Taliban-led administration took control of Kabul in mid-August last year.

He had never allowed himself to be filmed, and an FBI notice of $10 million bounty on his head for alleged terrorist activities featured only a blurry image of a bearded man mostly shrouded by a blanket.

Previously, he has only been photographed clearly from behind — even since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last August, Dawn reported.

“For your satisfaction and for building your trust… I am appearing in the media in a public meeting with you,” he said in a speech at the parade.

“I appeared in front of the media for the first time because of your credibility and to value you,” he told police officials.

Pictures of Haqqani were being widely shared on social media on Saturday by Taliban officials who had previously only posted photographs that didn’t show his face or those in which it had been digitally blurred.

At the police parade, Haqqani was dressed like many of the other senior Taliban officials — very heavily bearded and wearing a black turban and white shawl, Dawn reported.

Haqqani was among the first senior leaders who had entered Kabul in August last year but kept a low profile over the past few months. He would meet foreign dignitaries and Taliban officials but photographs from such meetings would always be blurred. He once appeared on a television interview but his face was not shown.

Haqqani heads his own group called the Haqqani network, which has been designated a terror outfit by the US for carrying out several major attacks on foreign and Afghan forces during the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan. However, the Taliban insist that there is no separate faction within the group.]

ALSO READ: Taliban intelligence trying to tighten grip on Afghan media

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan Asia News

UN In a Fix Over Payment to Haqqani For Security

According to the proposal, the UN will pay the money to Haqqani to safeguard the UN offices and facilities in Afghanistan…writes Mrityunjoy Kumar Jha

UN officials appear to have run out of options as they have turned to one of the most wanted terrorist Sirajuddin Haqqani, currently the Interior Minister of the Taliban regime, asking him to provide security to its personnel and missions working in Afghanistan.

The UN is ready with a proposal to pay $6 million per year to Sirajuddin Haqqani who ironically also heads the UN designated terror outfit Haqqani Network (HQN). With a bounty of $10 million on his head, Sirajuddin Haqqani is among the top wanted terrorist list of the US.

According to the proposal, the UN will pay the money to Haqqani to safeguard the UN offices and facilities in Afghanistan. The Interior Ministry of the Taliban government is responsible for the internal security including the security of the UN and other foreign missions in Afghanistan but the security situation in the country has gone worse after the Taliban’s capture of power. The UN withdrew all its staff and closed all facilities citing the lack of security.

“The United Nations has a duty as an employer to reinforce and, where necessary, supplement the capacity of host states in circumstances where UN personnel work in areas of insecurity,” said the Deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq, reports New York Post citing Reuters.

UN pitches paying $6M for security to Taliban unit whose chief is wanted by the FBI

Interestingly it was the same Haqqani network which is responsible for deadly attacks on the foreign missions including the UN missions in Afghanistan during the previous regime. In their last regime in 1996, the Taliban had attacked the UN mission and dragged out the former president Najibullah and hanged him.

According to the report of Reuters, the UN proposal said that most of the USD 4 million security budget proposed for 2022 by the 20 UN agencies operating out of Afghanistan is the payment made to protect the UN personnel. This fund will boost the wages of Taliban ‘fighters’ who are ‘protecting’ UN personnel by $275-to-$319 per month. This will also provide them a monthly food allowance of USD 90 per person.

Last week, Sirajuddin Haqqani had told the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Dibra Lines, that the world must be prepared to engage with the Taliban. The recent picture of Haqqani released by his ministry still has the blurred face of Sirajuddin Haqqani. The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that if the UN and the world did not want to be threatened on Afghan soil, the group should be recognized as a responsible “government”.

But the US and the UN are not in hurry to legitimise the Taliban government. On Wednesday, the US formally exempted US and UN officials doing official business with the Taliban from the US sanctions clearing the way for proposed UN payments of $6 million to the group for security.

According to media reports, the US has allowed its officials and those of certain international organizations, such as the United Nations, to engage in transactions involving the Taliban or Haqqani network as long as they are official business on certain kinds of projects, including humanitarian programs for basic human needs and education.

But the US maintains that sanctions against some Taliban leaders including leaders of Haqqani Network will remain in place. There are four “wanted” Haqqani leaders in the Taliban government including Sirajuddin Haqqani and his uncle Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani and both carry the bounty of $15 million on their heads.

(The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)

ALSO READ: US shouldn’t interfere in Afghanistan: Taliban

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan

Taliban keep Haqqani’s face out of cameras

Despite the obvious effort to shroud Haqqani’s appearance, closer inspection reveals the most distinct image of Haqqani’s face seen in recent years….reports Asian Lite News

The Taliban has been criticized for including some notoriously shady characters in Afghanistan’s acting government, perhaps none more than Sirajuddin Haqqani, a designated terrorist last photographed hiding behind a plant, RFE/RL reported.

In his first public appearance since he was named the Taliban’s interior minister in early September, Haqqani on October 19 praised suicide bombers and promised money and land to a packed house of their surviving family members.

In an official photo of the event at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, the target of deadly Taliban attacks in 2011 and 2018, Haqqani can barely be seen sitting behind a strategically placed floral arrangement onstage, the report said.

Despite the obvious effort to shroud Haqqani’s appearance, closer inspection reveals the most distinct image of Haqqani’s face seen in recent years.

Another camera angle shows the events’ decorations, VIPs, and Taliban special-forces troops brandishing recently pilfered US military gear much more clearly. That is, except for Haqqani, whose body is shown but whose face has been completely photoshopped out of the scene, the report added.

Other photos show every wrinkle and fold on Haqqani’s beige shirt, brown vest, and black turban. But aside from his hands, a glimpse of an ear, and traces of his trademark dark beard, Haqqani’s face is again either blurred or artfully hidden behind warm embraces with attendees of the event, the report said.

The photos mark the second attempt by the Taliban to keep Haqqani’s face out of the camera’s view since the extremist group seized power on August 15.

During an introductory meeting of the Interior Ministry on September 10, only the back of Haqqani’s head can be seen as he addressed his new staff wearing a similar outfit, the report said.

But the involvement of Haqqani — who heads the Haqqani network — has raised serious questions as to the Taliban’s commitment to its claims of reform.

The acting interior minister, who is the son of the deceased Haqqani network founder Jalaluddin Haqqani — is among the FBI’s most-wanted fugitives.

Some on Twitter have speculated that Haqqani’s current appearance is being obscured to protect him from those who might want to cash in on the reward money.

Multiple sources in Kabul have told RFE/RL that Haqqani frequently changes location and keeps his movements secret out of fear that Washington will target him using remotely piloted drones.

Others on Twitter have suggested that the Taliban is attempting to portray Haqqani as a divine leader or that the images are being blurred in keeping with the group’s previous stance that photography was forbidden under its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Haqqani is not the only Taliban official working in the shadows. The militant group’s newly named supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has only been seen on posters even as government appointments are attributed to him amid reports that he died a year ago.

And the whereabouts of Mullah Yaqoob Omar, the 30-something son of Mullah Omar who has been named the militant group’s caretaker defense minister, is essentially a mystery, the report said.

But his depiction of suicide bombers as “heroes of Islam and the country” during the October 19 event at the Intercontinental Hotel — where 42 people were killed by Taliban gunmen in 2018 — fell on deaf ears to those outside the venue.

Reactions to Haqqani’s appearance — however blurred — were harsh among Afghans who have been victimized by suicide attacks.

“Thousands of young people and families were killed,” Ibrahim, whose brother Khajeh Isa was killed in a suicide attack in the northwestern Herat Province in 2009, told RFE/RL. “Children, the young, and the old were martyred.”

“We see that today those who committed suicide [bombings] are being honored in the name of martyrdom,” said Ibrahim, whose full name has been withheld out of concerns of possible retribution against him. “Unfortunately, this is far from humanity and religion… No conscience accepts that suicide is a part of Islamic law.”

ALSO READ: Govt should not ‘uplift’ Pak Taliban: Malala

Categories
-Top News China

China putting pressure on Haqqani to extradite Uyghur militants

Chinese security experts have warned that even a small number of them will still pose a threat to China’s security….reports Mrityunjoy Kumar Jha

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Interior Minister of Afghanistan and chief of the dreaded terror outfit Haqqani Network is still living in shadow. But according to reports, he has been meeting frequently with Chen Wenqing, the Intelligence Chief of China. According to information, the last time Sirajuddin and Wenqing met was Tuesday. The meeting took place in Sirajuddin’s undisclosed location, not the Chinese embassy. It is believed that Chen conveyed China’s frustration because the New Taliban government has not broken its ties with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as promised.

China had demanded that the Taliban break relations with all militant groups and take resolute action against the ETIM. But the Taliban has not fulfilled its promises so far. According to Afghan sources, the Chinese spy chief asked Sirajuddin Haqqani for extradition of prominent members of militant outfit ETIM.

Though the Taliban has repeatedly told the media that they have asked the ETIM fighters to leave Afghanistan but various intelligence reports suggest otherwise. The Chinese Ambassador in Afghanistan asked the Taliban leaders for details.

“Where have the members of the ETIM gone after leaving Afghanistan? How many of them are staying in the country? “he asked.

Chinese security experts have warned that even a small number of them will still pose a threat to China’s security.

ETIM militants are mainly located in Afghanistan’s provinces of Badakhshan, Kunduz and Takhar.

ALSO READ: China trying to impose Mandarin in Tibetan schools


“Approximately 500 fighters of the group operate in the north and north-east of Afghanistan, primarily in Raghistan and Warduj districts, Badakhshan, with financing based in Raghistan, “Li Wei, an expert on national security and anti-terrorism at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times.

Chinese experts are apprehensive that the Chinese demand for the extradition of ETIM members would be challenging not only because of the Taliban’s consistent rejection, no matter the cost, of requests for the expulsion of militants who have helped them in their battles.

The Taliban had already made that clear two decades ago when they accepted the risk of a US invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 by refusing for the umpteenth time to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. There is little in Taliban 2.0 that suggests that this has changed.

Furious, China has also raised the issue of ETIM on Wednesday in the UN. Referring to the US decision to remove the ETIM from its Terrorist Exclusion List in October last year, Chinese envoy in the UN, Geng Shuang blamed the US of condoning and shielding the group which is a UN-designated terror organisation.

“We call for the unity and collaboration of the international community to prevent the ETIM and other terrorist forces from festering in Afghanistan, and to prevent the country from again becoming a haven and a fountainhead of terrorist activities, “the state affiliated media China Daily quoted Geng as saying.

China was among the few countries which kept its embassy open during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and has been regularly engaging with their leadership. As per the Global Times, the Chinese have already planned the extension of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). But with the CPEC projects in Pakistan already facing attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an ally of the Taliban, leading to delays, China is wary about its investments in Afghanistan too.

Will Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who himself is a designated terrorist with a bounty of $10 million, heed to the Chinese demand to extradite ETIM members to Beijing. Many experts don’t think so.

“It’s hard to see a wanted man turning over someone who is wanted for similar

reasons, “says an Afghan journalist.

(The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)

ALSO READ: CIA announces new unit focusing on China

ALSO READ: Army chief talks tough ahead of India-China border talks

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan Qatar

Haqqanis present in full strength at meeting with Qatar

The Taliban insisted that Baradar is in Kandahar province, meeting with the group’s supreme leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada to discuss the country’s future…reports Asian Lite News

Speculation intensified about the fate of the Deputy Leader of Afghanistan government, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, after Taliban leaders met with senior delegates from Qatar in Kabul on Sunday, with Baradar conspicuously absent from the meeting, Daily Mail reported.

On Monday, the Taliban were forced to deny that Mullah Baradar is dead after rumours emerged that he was killed during a gunfight with his political rivals.

The Taliban insisted that Baradar is in Kandahar province, meeting with the group’s supreme leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada to discuss the country’s future now that the US troops have withdrawn.

But the social media rumour-mill believes he was actually killed in a gun battle in Kabul’s presidential palace on Friday that broke out during a meeting with the powerful and ruthless Haqqani family, the report said.

Three members of the Haqqani family were at the summit with Qatar delegates along with other members of the new Afghan government – led by Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund, the report said.

PIc credits @MofaQatar_EN

Baradar is one of the Taliban’s founding members and had served as deputy to its first supreme leader Mullah Omar, who died in 2013 from tuberculosis.

After Omar’s death, Baradar took over as leader of the political wing of the Taliban and is one of the group’s senior most figures.

But he is thought to be in conflict with the Haqqani family, leaders of the fearsome Haqqani Network which is affiliated to the Taliban but also has links to terror groups opposed to the Islamists, such as ISIS-K.

Two members of the clan – Sirajuddin and Khalil – now hold senior positions in the new government, taking the roles of Interior Minister and Refugee Minister, respectively.

Anna Haqqani also holds a role as a high-level negotiator, and was present during the meeting with Qatari diplomats.

Rumours about Baradar’s safety began circulating last week when the Taliban announced its new government and named him as Deputy Prime Minister, despite the widespread belief that he would take the top job.

That led to speculation that he had been demoted due to the in-fighting between Taliban founding members and the Haqqani Network — a powerful faction of the Taliban whose family members secured top positions in the new administration, the report said.

ALSO READ: Women worst sufferers in Afghanistan: Experts

ALSO READ: India is monitoring developments in Afghanistan with concern: Jaishankar

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan Asia News

PAK ROLE IN KABUL AIRPORT BLAST: The Plot To Hoodwink

Gurdwara-attack-mastermind-Aslam-Farooqi

The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) might have claimed responsibility for the attack, but without Pakistan’s patronage and management, camouflaged in intricate webs of deceit, the terrorist group could not have carried out the attack on its own …. Writes Kaliph Anaz

Pakistan’s fig-leaf of deniability in the devastating Kabul Airport attack, which killed over 100 Afghans and more than a dozen American soldiers, must be exposed without delay. The smokescreen of a cover up that is being orchestrated by vested interests is a portender of another Cold War in the making and needs to be cleared at the earliest.

The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) might have claimed responsibility for the attack, but without Pakistan’s patronage and management, camouflaged in intricate webs of deceit, the terrorist group could not have carried out the attack on its own.

It is quite easy to see where the web of connections tracing Pakistan’s involvement in the Kabul attack start–in Jalalabad, Lahore and Bahawalpur.

Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, adjacent to the Pak border, where the Haqqani Network has ruled supreme for several decades. With the decline of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the Haqqani Network is one of the deadliest and resourceful terrorist groups in the world today. The network is supported and protected by Pakistan which has offered several sanctuaries to the group in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

Without the Haqqani Network, the Taliban could not have run over Afghanistan as it did this year.  Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of the terror conglomeration, is also a founding member of the Taliban and is part of the group’s decision-making shura or council. The network, the only global terrorist entity to survive two-decades of sanctions and military action, acts as the pincer head of the Taliban military operations.

Another Haqqani member of importance is Khalil Haqqani, considered to be the Taliban’s emissary to Al Qaeda, an asset shared by CIA and ISI for long and currently claiming himself to be the Taliban’s head of security for Kabul.

The relationship between the Haqqani Network and Taliban is not a secret.  Nor is the relationship the two groups share with Pakistan. So, where does ISKP fit in with this troika of evil?

On the face of it, ISKP is an adjunct of ISIL (ISIS), a global terrorist entity that claims to fight for an Islamic “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, and beyond. The ISKP emerged in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan in 2015 and since then has been part of the terrorist enclave in the Af-Pak region. Although the ISKP had initially declared itself to be against the Taliban and al Qaeda for straying away from jihad, its policy of drawing in disgruntled cadres from the Taliban and other terrorist groups in the region came in handy for ISI to infiltrate its leadership and ranks.

The ISKP leadership came from the Haqqani Network or Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (headquartered in Lahore), two global terrorist entities with close ties to the Pakistan Army. The most recent report of the UN Secretary General on the threat posed by ISIL, ISKP’s new leader, Shihad al-Muhajir was a former hard-core member of the Haqqani Network. Not only do the groups share cadres, they are also partners in drug trafficking, militancy and ties to Pakistan. Besides the working relationship, these two groups are also bound through tribal and marriage ties.

Evidence of this complex relationship was confirmed, according to a recent New York Times report, when biometric profiling of detained ISKP terrorists revealed that biometrics data of certain terrorists were already stored in the database; they were previously arrested as Haqqani Network members. In other words, the leaders and cadres often shifted between the groups depending on requirements.

If there was a proof required to establish the ties between the HaqqaniNetwork-ISKP and Pakistan, it surfaced when the Pakistani leader of ISKP, Aslam Farooqi (Abdullah Orakzai) was arrested by Afghan security forces in Kandahar last year. He was involved in the March 2020 attack on a gurdwara in Kabul which killed over 25 persons. Farooqi revealed how the ISKP was not only associated with the Haqqani Network but was also deeply involved in Pakistani groups like LeT and JeM. Farooqi was in fact a LeT leader before he migrated to ISKP, a clever tactic put in place by Pakistan Army to outsource terrorist attacks without getting its sleeves bloodied, or that of the Taliban.

People queue up to board a military aircraft of Germany and leave Kabul at Kabul airport, Afghanistan. (XinhuaIANS)

Another former LeT leader whose arrest in April 2020 confirmed this troika was Muneeb alias Abu Bilal. He was an ISKP leader with close ties to the Taliban’s Peshawar shura, LeT and the Haqqani Network.

One of the most telling proofs of the involvement of the Haqqani Network-ISKP-LeT in the Kabul attack is the modus operandi–a planned assault using multiple offensive tactics, with specific objectives, including mass casualties. The Pak Army tactic, the Kabul Airport attack revealed, was quite straightforward–LeT cadres, already operating out of many provinces in Afghanistan, would carry out reconnaissance of potential targets, the Haqqani Network would prove organisation and logistical planning and ISKP, with its cadres trained in camps run by JeM (headquartered in Bahawalpur) carry out the attack and claim responsibility. This strategy was evident in the May 12, 2020, attack on the Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul and the bombing of the Sayed ul-Shuhada High School in Kabul on May 8, killing over  90 people, mostly schoolgirls.

In a documentary, an Afghan media group, Tolo News, last year revealed how ISI was acting as a HR department for the Haqqanis as well as ISKP supplying them with cadres from LeT and JeM besides giving the group around $200 million as aid every year. Former Pakistan ambassador to the US and author, Hussain Haqqani, labelled the relationship quite succinctly- “ISKP is an outcome of the ideological extremism of Pakistani jihadi movements.”

The ISKK’s claim of carrying out the Kabul attack is a smokescreen created by Pakistan Army to distance itself, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network from such a ghastly act of terror. Pakistan is eager for the international community, including China, to recognise the Taliban as a `moderate force`, to pre-empt possible FATF blacklisting if the Haqqanis were to be accused while showing emphatically who really the kingmaker in Afghanistan is.