Finally, some news of the elusive Interior Minister of Taliban regime Sirajuddin Haqqani has emerged. And it is not pleasant. The globally acknowledged terror master was at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul on Monday to felicitate the family members of the suicide bombers of Taliban. It was the same hotel which was attacked by his suicide bombers in 2011. He was also responsible of two other major suicide bombings—in 2008 and 2009—against the Indian Embassy in Kabul.
The chief of the one of the most dreaded terror outfit with a bounty of $ 10 million, Sirajuddin told the families that “martyr” suicide bombers are "heroes of Islam and homeland,” as reported by the Afghan news Hasht-eSubh Daily. Sirajuddin thanked the families of “martyred” suicide bombers and told them they should be proud of being families of “the Mujahideen and the martyrs.” Distributing 10000 afghani rupees and a plot of land to each family, he stressed: ”Now and I must refrain from betraying the aspirations of our martyrs.”
Interestingly the picture of the meeting was provided by the Interior Ministry with a blurred face of their boss because he is one of the wanted men by the US with a bounty of million dollars, the paper claims.
As reported earlier, the Taliban’s Interior Ministry has deployed a special suicide battalion named Lashkar-e-Mansoori also known as Mansoor army or Mansoor Battalion and has deployed it at Afghanistan’s borders.
Also Read: Taliban deploys suicide bomber battalion on Tajikstan border as tension rises
As the Interior Minister, Sirajuddin controls the most powerful ministry in the Taliban’s newly resurrected Islamic Emirate. He controls internal security forces, directs intelligence and counterintelligence activities, and appoints provincial governors. The Haqqanis leverage their power through relationships and close ties with Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment. Sirajuddin is arguably the Taliban’s most powerful and influential leader. He inherited the leadership of the Haqqani Network in the late 2000s from his father, Jalaluddin, one of the Taliban’s most famed leaders. Jalaluddin was instrumental in supporting al-Qaeda, bringing Osama bin Laden back to Afghanistan in 1996, sponsoring al-Qaeda training camps, and defending Osama bin Laden during the US invasion in 2001. The Haqqanis have a reputation for frequently using suicide bombers and have demonstrated the ability to carry out complex, high-casualty assaults on major targets including military installations and embassies.
Sirajuddin also led the Miramshah Shura, one of the Taliban’s regional political and military commands, which is based in Pakistan. In 2016, Sirajuddin was named as one of two deputy emirs of the Taliban supremo Haibatullah Akhundzada.
