Chief of the feared Afghan Haqqani militant network, Jaluluddin Haqqani died almost a year ago of natural causes and was buried in Afghan province of Khost, Afghan Taliban sources said on Friday.
While news of Jalaluddin Haqqani’s death had been making rounds for almost a month now, multiple sources in the Afghan Taliban have now confirmed his demise. Jalaluddin Haqqani is also the father of Sirajuddin Haqqani who was on Thursday, appointed deputy chief of the Afghan Taliban after Mullah Akhtar Mansour took over as the new supreme leader of the movement in place of the outfit’s founder Mullah Omar.
The militant group has not officially given out a statement over Haqqani’s demise yet.
Sources said that Sirajudin Haqqani has been running the Afghan militant network for over a year now, ever since his father’s illness.
The Haqqani network was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani — an Afghan guerrilla leader bankrolled by the United States to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
In the 1980s, Jalaluddin was close to the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. He allied himself with the Taliban after they took power in Kabul in 1996, serving as a cabinet minister under the militia’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
When American troops arrived after the 9/11 attacks, Haqqani sought refuge in Pakistan’s tribal district of North Waziristan and became one of the first anti-US commanders based in the border areas.
Jalaluddin had set up a base in North Waziristan following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, under which he was the minister for border affairs. He used his North Waziristan base to direct the Haqqani network’s operations in Afghanistan. The group is accused of being behind some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan.
He reportedly had training bases in eastern Afghanistan and was close to al Qaeda. His fighters are known to be active across east and southeast Afghanistan and in the capital Kabul.
The network is militarily the most capable of the Afghan Taliban factions and operates independently but remains loyal to Mullah Omar.
Jalaluddin Haqqani had 10 sons of whom three were killed in US drone attacks while the fourth, Naseeruddin Haqqani was gunned down by unidentified assailants in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad in 2013. Naseeruddin was the group’s chief fundraiser.
Jalaluddin was also on the UN Sanctions list since January 31, 2001. The provisions of the UNSC resolutions 1267 (1999), and 1333 (2000) applied to him, which, among other things, bar the international travel of listed individuals and prevent any assistance to them.
The US had also put a $10 million bounty on Jalaluddin Haqqani.