Pakistan PM calls Haqqani Network an Afghan Pashtun tribe, draws flak

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan PM Imran Khan drew criticism on Thursday for giving an inaccurate account of the proscribed terror outfit Haqqani Network, describing it as a Pashtun tribe in

Afghanistan

that had played a crucial role in the defeat of former Soviet Union in the 1980s before waging a war against the US and its western allies after their invasion of the war-battered country in 2001.


“The Americans never understood what the Haqqani Network was. Haqqani Network is a tribe. It is a Pashtun tribe living in Afghanistan,”

Khan

said in an interview with the CNN. He went on to say that when the Afghan jihad took place, there were five million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. “Amongst them a few were Haqqanis and Haqqanis were the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets… they were born in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan,” he said. “What they (Americans) were asking us was that we were supposed to check among three million Afghan refugees which ones were Taliban (and Haqqanis) and which were not,” Imran added. Khan’s statement, however, was factually incorrect. Ironically, he first blamed the US for not understanding the Haqqani Network and then proceeded to make an illinformed comment about the origins of the group himself.

It prompted many social media users to correct the clueless PM. “There is no Pashtun tribe called ‘Haqqani’ in Afghanistan @ImranKhanPTI. The Haqqani Network is not named after any Pashtun tribe. We understand you have to defend Taliban, but at least get your facts right,” Kaushal Khan, a Twitter user, wrote. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former envoy to the US, tweeted, “If Jalaluddin Haqqani is from Haqqani Tribe then Imran Khan is from Aitchison (an elite pre-Partition school in Lahore) and Oxford Tribes.” Majority of the Taliban leaders, including the group’s founder, Mullah Omar, had studied at Darul Uloom-i-Haqqania — a religious seminary in Pakistan which was founded by Maulana Abdul Haq in Nowshera district of Khyber Paktunkhwa province after the partition. Many of students use ‘Haqqani’ as their surname. Jalaluddin Haqqani, the slain founder of the Haqqani Network, who was once a student at this madrassa, had adopted ‘Haqqani’ as a family name. Jalaluddin’s family comes from southeastern Afghanistan and belonged to Sultankhel sub-tribe of Zadran, in the Wazi Zadran district of Paktia province, near Pakistan border.

The terror network has been accused of some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan. Jalaluddin Haqqani was a loyal ally of the CIA in the anti-Soviet war. He later turned against the US and Nato forces, often reportedly operating from Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region. Islamabad is accused of giving safe haven to the group — a charge it denies.