KABUL - A day after confirmation of Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s death, chief of the Haqqani militant network and father of Sirajuddin Haqqani, Jalaludin Haqqani, died almost a year ago and was buried in Afghan province of Khost, Taliban said.
While news of Jalaluddin Haqqani's death had been making rounds for almost a month now, Dawn.com said that multiple credible sources in Taliban confirmed on Friday that he had died of illness almost a year ago.
However, the militant group has not officially given out a statement over Haqqani's demise.
It said that Sirajudin Haqqani, Jalaluddin's son, has been running the 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 to 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 attacked Afghanistan 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. The group is accused of being behind some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan.
The network is militarily the most capable of the Afghan Taliban factions and operates independently but remains loyal to Mullah Omar.
Unidentified gunmen attacked and killed Nasiruddin Haqqani, the group's chief fundraiser and another son of its founder, on the edge of Islamabad in 2013.
Due to his ailment, the militant ‘commander’ had handed over operational command of the Haqqani network to his son, Sirajuddin.
Jalaluddin was also on the UN Sanctions list since January 31, 2001. (Pajhwok)