Sirajuddin Haqqani is the son of the legendary Afghan commander
Jalaluddin Haqqani. He is considered the most dangerous Afghan
Taliban commander fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan. His
network is responsible for some of the effective attacks against the
occupation forces in Afghanistan.
I met Haqqani in April 2004 at his base in Dande Darpa Khail in
North Waziristan. This was the first interview he had ever given to
any correspondent (published as “Through the eyes of the Taliban,”
Asia Times Online, May 5, 2004). At that time Sirajuddin was
thought of as no more than just a son of the legendary Jalaluddin.
His mettle had not been tested in the battlefield as a commander.
When I was granted an interview with him, he was sitting in a small room in front of Manbaul Uloom, an Islamic seminary founded by
his father Jalaluddin Haqqani. The seminary was forcibly closed by
the Pakistani authorities after the Taliban’s defeat in Afghanistan
in 2001. When I entered the room some youths sitting in the room
quickly covered their faces, but I could see from their eyes and their
foreheads they were neither local tribesmen nor Pashtuns. I was not
surprised to discover they were Punjabis, as Punjabi fighters were
known as the real strength of the Haqqani network.
Jalaluddin Haqqani was a graduate of Darul Uloom Haqqania,
a religious seminary in Akora Khattak near Peshawar, but he relied
largely on Punjabi fighters for his Jihadi ventures. Although he
came from the Zadran tribe of Paktia, he drew his strength from
Pakistani Jihadi organizations, especially Harkatul Mujahadeen and
Harkat-ul Jihad-i-Islami.
Khost is the home town of former President Najeeb Ullah. In
North Waziristan, all the credit for its fall to the mujahideen in
1991 is given to the Punjabi militants of the Harkatul Mujahadeen
fighting under the command of Jalaluddin. The Punjabis led by
Haqqani were the first to defeat the communist army in any urban
center. At that time the Afghan tribesmen under the command of
Haqqani were far fewer than their Pakistani counterparts.
After the fall of Taliban in late 2001, like all other Taliban
commanders, Haqqani lost influence in Afghanistan. He had to
migrate to North Waziristan to raise another army. Most of his
Afghan followers disappeared into the Afghan fabric of society. In
North Waziristan, the local tribesmen were organized under their
own tribal commanders. Haqqani was thus left with no choice but
to fall back, once again, on fighters from the Punjab to wage his war
on NATO troops.
Sirajuddin Haqqani’s allies, the Punjabi fighters (in Afghanistan
all non-Pashtu-speaking Pakistanis are called Punjabis), had survived
an ordeal in Pakistan after 9/11. The Jihadi outfits were banned after
9/11 under US pressure, and then after the attack on Musharraf’s
life in 2003 hundreds of Jihadis were rounded up and detained
for several months without trial. Naturally that also influenced
Sirajuddin Haqqani’s attitude, and he gradually leaned towards
anti-military thinking. From 2006 onwards he took a track different
from the traditional Afghan Taliban. (Afghan Taliban commanders,
like Sirajuddin Haqqani’s father Jalaluddin, had always been close
to Pakistan and the Arab countries.)
Although Jalaluddin Haqqani had been a favorite of the ISI
during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the situation changed dramatically from 2007 onwards. Earlier, the Al-Qaeda-led operation
reached its climax in Pakistan, and in retaliation Pakistani security
agencies conducted across-the-board crackdowns against militant
organizations such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkatul Mujahadeen,
and Harkat-ul Jihad-i-Islami. Hundreds of their members were
put on the wanted list and were left with no choice other than to
seek refuge in North Waziristan. They made Jalaluddin Haqqani’s
base their home and the Jihad against NATO their mission. They
brought an anti-military establishment mindset with them to North
Waziristan.
From 2005 to 2007 the migration of Jihadis to North Waziristan
was huge. Thousands of Punjabi Jihadis fled to the territory.
Although most of them were connected to the Haqqanis’ network,
Al-Qaeda was the source of their inspiration, even before their
arrival in North Waziristan. They had felt privileged to sit with Arab
ideologues like Sheikh Essa, Abu Waleed Ansari, and Abu Yahya
al-Libbi. They often invited them to their camps, where the Arab
ideologues had frequent interactions with Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Interactions with the Arabs had a deep and penetrating influence
on Sirajuddin, but this process came about so gradually that perhaps
he himself was unaware of the spell they had cast. Jalaluddin fell ill
in 2007 and was compelled to hand over his command to Sirajuddin.
That was the turning point in the internal dynamics of the Haqqani
network. Soon afterwards, Jalaluddin became completely bedridden.
He was no longer in any position to give directions to Sirajuddin,
who was then in his mid-thirties. Al-Qaeda commanders seized
the opportunity and developed strategic ties with Jalaluddin’s heir.
His assault on Bagram in February 2007, for instance, was recog-
nized as being guided by Abu Laith Al-Libi. This Arab ideologue
made all his expertise available to Sirajuddin to carry out the
attack. Subsequently, several other operations carried out by the
Haqqani network in Ghazni, Khost, and Kabul were coordinated by
Al-Qaeda. Within months the Haqqani network was considered the
most effective Taliban group in Afghanistan.
His interaction and coordination with the Arab ideologues drew
Sirajuddin deeper into the Al-Qaeda net. Pakistan’s military opera-
tions in North Waziristan, and the CIA’s repeated predator drone
attacks on the Haqqani home in Dand-e-Darpa Khail in 2008 and
2009, added fuel to the fire. Several of his family members were
killed during that period, and this wrecked Sirajuddin’s connec-
tions with Pakistan’s military establishment. Pakistan’s military
was blamed by the militants for feeding information to the CIA regarding their hideouts. Jalaluddin had always kept at a safe
distance from the Al-Qaeda-influenced Pakistani militant groups,
but from 2007 onwards, Sirajuddin felt his own interests might be
better served were he to develop closer links with Al-Qaeda and its
Pakistani associates. His plan was to rise to the position of the most
important commander in the Afghan national resistance against
NATO forces.
Sirajuddin’s main handicap was the nature of relations between
the Taliban and his father. Jalaluddin had been on his own during
the Taliban-led Afghanistan resistance. For example, although
Mullah Omar had appointed him his deputy and commander in
chief for the spring offensive in 2006, the Kandahari clan of the
Taliban, who came from south-west Afghanistan, fought indepen-
dently of him. Commanders like the slain Mullah Dadullah kept
coming to the two Waziristans to recruit local tribesmen to fight
NATO in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. This intrusion into
Haqqani territory naturally upset Jalaluddin, but he did not utter
a word in reproach. Nor, if the truth be told, was he in a position
to. After all, he had never been a Taliban in the true sense of the
word.
When the Taliban rose in the mid-1990s Jalaluddin was the first
mujahideen leader to accept them. He pledged allegiance to the
much younger Mullah Omar, who was then a little-known Taliban
commander. Despite this, and notwithstanding that he was one of
the most celebrated resistance figures in Afghanistan, Jalaluddin
was not accorded any importance. Only the Talibs (students)
were assigned important portfolios. After Jalaluddin passed on his
command to him, Sirajuddin would have considered these back-
ground facts before diving into the waiting arms of Al-Qaeda. Still,
his relations with Al-Qaeda were circumspect.
The NATO command in Kabul could see new developments
taking place in the Haqqani network. They had been evaluating
Sirajuddin’s distancing from the Taliban command council, and saw
him as an independent operator. They drew the wrong conclusion.
In their media releases Sirajuddin was noted as a possible rival to
Mullah Omar. This erroneous assessment came from little under-
standing of the crucial relations between Sirajuddin and Al-Qaeda.
In fact, Sirajuddin had always been loyal to Mullah Omar. Al-Qaeda
had approved of this as it wanted Sirajuddin to tighten his ties
with the Taliban to ensure they did not deviate from Al-Qaeda’s
broader aims and strategies. Al-Qaeda also did not want him to be
disloyal to Mullah Omar. They wanted this most important Taliban commander to sit tightly with the Taliban as their man, and ensure
the Al-Qaeda agenda was kept on track. Sirajuddin’s network was
in a position to do this as it was the most influential Taliban-led
group of the Afghan national resistance against NATO. Sirajuddin
was seen to move out completely from his father’s shadow.
During the Shiite–Sunni riots in Pakistan’s Kurram Agency
in 2007–08, Sirajuddin sent his men to support the Sunnis. He
developed strong ties with the anti-Pakistan commander of TTP,
Baitullah Mehsud. In 2009 when the Pakistani security forces
arrested Sirajuddin’s brother Naseeruddin, he was released only
after Mahsud agreed to swap him with Pakistani soldiers he had
captured.
Sirajuddin might not have put much effort into wondering how
he had been pulled into the Al-Qaeda camp, but factually it had
much to do with extraneous factors like his having to take into
consideration the views of his Punjabi fighters, all of whom had
turned anti-establishment because of the government crackdowns
on them, on suspicion of their interaction with Al-Qaeda in North
Waziristan. Then there was his father Jalaluddin’s illness, and
finally Al-Qaeda and its associates’ unconditional support of him.
In fact, so committed did Sirajuddin become to the Al-Qaeda cause
that during Pakistan’s military operation against the TTP (an anti-
Pakistani government group) in 2009, he not only provided
sanctuary, but also helped the militants fight the Pakistan
Army.