Haqqani network denies involvement in assassination of Afghan envoy

Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani said the militant outfit didn’t kill Burhanuddin Rabbani, killed by a suicide bomber last month The commander of Afghanistan’s most notorious militant outfit, the Haqqani network, has denied playing a part in the assassination of President Hamid Karzai’s main peace envoy two weeks ago. “We haven’t killed Burhanuddin Rabbani,” Sirajuddin Haqqani said in an audiotape message delivered to the BBC Pashto service, referring to the peace envoy killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul on 20 September. It was the first public pronouncement by the Haqqanis on an issue that has triggered a fresh war of words between Pakistan and Afghanistan and killed off near-term hopes of starting peace talks to end the conflict. On Monday Islamabad lashed out at Afghan accusations that its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy service engineered the assassination to control the barely-nascent Taliban peace process. “Instead of making such irresponsible statements, those in positions of authority in Kabul should seriously deliberate as to why all those Afghans who are favourably disposed towards peace and towards Pakistan are systematically being removed from the scene and killed,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement . Afghan investigators allege that Rabbani’s assassin was a Pakistani whose mission had been controlled from the western Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Taliban “Quetta shura” is allegedly based. If true, that would discount the role of the Haqqani network, which operates further east along the lawless border. Nonetheless, the Haqqanis remain a major point of contention between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US. Two weeks ago the outgoing US military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, caused consternation with allegations that the Haqqanis were a “veritable arm” of the ISI. He hinted that the ISI had directed a daring guerrilla assault on the US embassy in Kabul on 13 September, as well as a giant truck bomb three days earlier that wounded 77 US soldiers at a base south of Kabul. But in recent days the White House and State Department have rowed back on Mullen’s comments, saying that while the ISI has allowed the Haqqanis to operate from Pakistani soil there is no evidence that Pakistani spies directed the embassy assault. The furore has left Pakistan more estranged than ever from its Afghan neighbours and its putative American allies. A senior Pakistani intelligence official insisted to the Guardian that the Haqqanis operate from Afghan soil, echoing comments Sirajuddin Haqqani recently made in an interview from Reuters. But he said he admitted that Haqqani’s father, the elderly Jalaluddin who founded the militant network in the 1980s, is resident in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal belt. Jalaluddin is seriously ill and living in the town with relatives, the Pakistani official said. He did not offer any proof to back up his assertion. A senior western official in the region confirmed that Haqqani senior was “bedridden”. But, he added, “I don’t know where that bed is.” Afghanistan Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Taliban Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk

Posted by on October 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.