Afghan guerrilla commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, a possible successor to Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, would likely prove an even more implacable foe of the beleaguered Afghan government forces and their U.S. allies.
Haqqani, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, is widely seen by U.S. and Afghan officials as the most dangerous warlord in the Taliban insurgency, responsible for the most bloody attacks, including one last month in Kabul in which 64 people were killed.
If Haqqani is confirmed as the next Taliban leader it may be seen as fitting for the scion of a family that has been famously involved in Afghanistan’s decades of bloodshed.
His father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was a heavily bearded leader of the mujahideen who fought the Soviet troops that invaded Afghanistan in 1979. A former U.S. Congressman, Charlie Wilson, once called Jalaluddin “goodness personified” and he was held in such high esteem he visited the White House when Ronald Reagan was President.
His son is seen as even more ruthless.
Sirajuddin Haqqani became one of two deputy Taliban commanders last year, integrating his feared militant faction, known as the Haqqani network, closely into the Afghan Taliban insurgency.
The Taliban now control more territory than they have done since their ouster from government in 2001, and hopes of peace talks that the United States was pushing have all but collapsed as the bloodshed has increased.
The Haqqani network is thought to have introduced suicide bombing to Afghanistan and the U.S. State Department calls it the most lethal insurgent group targeting U.S.-led and government forces in Afghanistan. It labels Sirajuddin Haqqani a “specially designated global terrorist”.
But it is by no means certain Haqqani would be named Taliban leader.
The Haqqani network, which has for years had strongholds in northwest Pakistani border lands, is a powerful force in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province, and the wider Loya Paktia region, but not in the birthplace of the Taliban — Kandahar province in the south.
The other question is if Pakistan is ready to show its hand by having a leader of the Haqqani network, with which it has long been tied to, command the Taliban.
