[The appointment of Haqqani, as well as relatives and members of his network, underscores his immense influence inside the Taliban. It also raises concerns that the new government will pursue a hard line agenda, even as Taliban leaders publicly claim to be gentler and more moderate than their brutal image in an effort to curry favor with donors and foreign governments.]
A U.N.
report in June described the Haqqani network as the “primary liaison
between the Taliban and Al-Qaida.” Its leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani — a brutal
insurgent commander known for dispatching suicide bombers who’ve killed or
maimed hundreds of civilians — was “assessed to be a member of the wider
Al-Qaida leadership, but not of the Al-Qaida core leadership.”
Today, he is Afghanistan’s acting
interior minister, overseeing the nation’s police, intelligence services and
other security forces.
He is also in charge of combating
terrorism.
“It’s a major concern,” said Colin
P. Clarke, director of policy and research at The Soufan Group, an intelligence
and security consulting firm. “You are one step removed from having the group
that attacked us on 9/11 running the country.”
The appointment of Haqqani, as well
as relatives and members of his network, underscores his immense influence
inside the Taliban. It also raises concerns that the new government will pursue
a hard line agenda, even as Taliban leaders publicly claim to be gentler and
more moderate than their brutal image in an effort to curry favor
with donors and foreign governments.
Haqqani's political rise puts the
Biden administration and other Western governments in a precarious position,
particularly in countering terrorist threats. They are forced to have
relationships with people they have sanctioned, many with bounties on their
heads, for committing or sponsoring terrorism — or targeting Americans. In the
interim government, at least 14 of the 33 cabinet members are on U.N. sanctions
lists.
[Surprise,
panic and fateful choices: The day America lost its longest war]
A Taliban spokesman did not
immediately respond to questions about the Haqqani’s alleged al-Qaeda ties and
concerns it could complicate much-needed relationships with foreign
governments, the United Nations and international donors.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is on the FBI’s most wanted list with a $5 million reward for
information leading to his arrest. The State Department, through its Rewards
For Justice Program, is offering $10 million, describing him as “a specially
designated global terrorist.”
He is wanted for “questioning in
connection with” a January 2008 attack on a Kabul hotel that killed six people,
including a U.S. citizen. He is also believed to have orchestrated attacks
against U.S. and coalition forces and in planning an assassination attempt of
former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, the State Department says.
Khalil Haqqani, the uncle of
Sirajuddin, is the acting Taliban minister for refugees. The State Department
is offering up to $5 million for his capture, in part because he “acted on
behalf of al-Qaida and has been linked to al-Qaida terrorist operations.”
In 2012, the United States designated the Haqqani network as a
foreign terrorist organization.
Secretary of State of Antony
Blinken told reporters at Ramstein Airbase in Germany on Wednesday that the
Taliban interim government “does not meet the test of inclusivity and it
includes people who have very challenging track records.”
“Our engagement with the Taliban
and with the government — interim or longer — will be for purposes of advancing
the national interest, our national interest and that of our partners,” said
Blinken. “We have and we will find ways to engage the Taliban, the interim
government, a future government, to do just that and to do it in ways that are
fully consistent with our laws.”
[A
timeline of the U.S. war in Afghanistan]
On Thursday, the Taliban demanded
that the United States and the United Nationsremove the Haqqanis and other
cabinet members from their “blacklists,” declaring that they violated the
agreements of a peace deal signed in Doha. The movement also criticized Pentagon
officials for noting that the Haqqanis were still targets.
“That America and other
countries are making such provocative statements and trying to meddle the
internal affairs of Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate condemns it in the
strongest terms,” the Taliban said in a statement. “Such remarks by U.S.
officials are a repetition of past failed experiments and such positions are
detrimental for America.”
“It’s a pretty difficult spot for
the Biden administration,” Clarke said. “If you deal with the Taliban in these
confines, you are essentially dealing with a terrorist group or members of a
terrorist organization. And if you don’t, you have no leverage and no influence
to control events in Afghanistan.”
The Haqqanis trace their roots to
the Soviet Cold War occupation of the 1980s and the Afghan mujahideen struggle
to liberate their nation. Sirajuddin’s father, Jalaluddin, was a famed
commander and CIA asset who forged a close alliance with Osama bin Laden and
other foreign Islamist militants who arrived to push the Soviet troops out of
Afghanistan.
In 1996, the elder Haqqani aligned
with the Taliban, helping the movement seize the country for the first time. He
served as a cabinet minister and a provincial governor. When the Taliban was
toppled in 2001 following the September 11th attacks, the Haqqanis became an
integral part of the insurgency against U.S.-led NATO forces.
In 2018, the Taliban announced
the death of Jalaluddin due to an undisclosed
illness. By then, Sirajuddin was already in charge of the Haqqani network,
which was based in eastern Afghanistan as well as in bases inside Pakistan’s
Northwest Territories; three years earlier the Taliban had appointed him as a
deputy leader.
The Haqqanis became known as “the
most lethal and sophisticated insurgent group targeting US, Coalition and
Afghans forces,” often attacking with small-arms, rocket, suicide bombers and
bomb-laden vehicles, according to the National
Counterterrorism Center.
The network orchestrated some of
the highest-profile attacks in the past two decades of war. This included a
June 2011 assault on Kabul’s Intercontinental hotel, two suicide bombings
against the Indian embassy and a day-long assault on
the U.S. Embassy and other high profile targets in Kabul a decade ago.
“People must be both reassured and
terrified by the fact that an entity seen as responsible for some of the worst
crimes of the war is now in charge of securing the population,” said Ashley
Jackson, an expert on the Taliban at the Overseas Development Institute. “But
there is a certain logic from inside the Taliban … if anyone can bring
security, one assumes it’s the Haqqani network.”
But that could also pose a threat
to Sirajuddin Haqqani’s influence inside the movement, where he has several
rivals, including Mohammad Yaqoob, the acting defense minister and son of the
Taliban’s late founder Mohammad Omar.
One of Haqqani's primary
challenges will be to prevent large-scale bombings by the Islamic State and
other militant groups that are against the Taliban — like the attack on Kabul's
airport last month that killed 13 U.S. service members and more
than 170 Afghans.
[The
flights to a new life were in sight: Portraits of Afghans lost in the airport
bombing]
“Since he’s number one now, it’s
his responsibility to prevent these urban attacks,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown,
director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors at the Brookings
Institution. “If he doesn’t, there’s going to be people unhappy, including
within the Taliban. They will say ‘you have this important portfolio, what the
hell are you doing?’”
Haqqani has also shown he can think
strategically off the battlefield. Last year, he shared his visions in an op-ed
in the New York Times with the headline: “What We, the Taliban, Want.” Many analysts viewed it
as a shrewd tactical move to soothe the concerns of the United States and the
international community following the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
“Everyone is tired of war,”
the op-ed from the brutal warlord read. “I am convinced that the killing and
the maiming must stop.”
“We are committed to working
with other parties in a consultative manner of genuine respect to agree on a
new, inclusive political system in which the voice of every Afghan is reflected
and where no Afghan feels excluded,” the op-ed continued.
Today, the acting Taliban government is anything but
inclusive. And there are already signs that Haqqani’s interior ministry will
not tolerate dissent. Protests by women seeking basic rights have been broken
up by Taliban fighters firing weapons and assaulting local journalists. An
interior ministry statement this week decreed that all protests must be
approved by the government at the risk of arrests.
“The Haqqani network is the kind of
hammer that comes back down and doesn’t allow the Taliban to be perceived as
moderate,” Clarke said. “That’s part of the reason why the Haqqanis are stacked
in the government. It’s to make sure there is no deviation from what they have
been working on for the past two decades.”
A key concern for the United States
is whether Haqqani’s rising profile will open the gateway for al-Qaeda to
resurrect itself in Afghanistan. In the U.N. report, investigators found that
the Taliban and al-Qaeda “remain closely aligned and show no signs of breaking
ties.” Al-Qaeda members live in at least 15 provinces.
At the moment, said both Jackson
and Clarke, the Haqqanis appear more interested in growing their influence in
the country, the region and within the Taliban movement rather than waging
global jihad.
“They waited 20 years to get back
into power,” Clarke said. “Now, they are, and they want to hold on to that
power.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington and Haq
Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
