Taliban denies reports of Haqqani's death
“We strongly dismiss the reports that Jalaluddin Haqqani is dead. He’s alive,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP, attributing the reports to “government propaganda”.
The Haqqanis, who are closely affiliated with the Taliban, are a key player in the insurgency against US-led Nato troops and Karzai’s Western-backed government, particularly in eastern Afghanistan.
Tolo, Afghanistan’s first 24-hour rolling news television channel, said Jalaluddin had died from kidney disease, claiming on its Twitter feed that the Taliban had confirmed it.
The United States blamed last month’s 18-hour assault on Kabul, the biggest to hit the capital in a decade, on the Haqqani network, saying the group’s leaders planned the attack from North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt.
Before stepping down as chief US military officer last year, Admiral Mike Mullen caused a sensation when he told Congress that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Haqqani was a mujahedeen leader sponsored by the CIA, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia during the fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
He served in the Taliban government after it took power in 1996 following years of civil war.
He
is
known
to
have
close
ties
to
al
Qaeda,
and
after
the
fall
of
the
Taliban
regime
in
the
2001
US-led
invasion,
he
joined
the
insurgency.
In
recent
years,
his
son
Sirajuddin
has
taken
on
increasing
leadership
within
the
group
from
his
father,
who
was
born
in
1942.
AFP