That would have been a good thing in 2002. It'd be stoopid now.
| Not that that would stop it from being true ... |
| Ouch. |
"No, no! Certainly not!"
The Pakistain-based Haqqani network is affiliated with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda and has been described US and other Western nations as the top security threat in Afghanistan. The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks, including a 20-hour siege of the US Embassy and NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
headquarters last month.
The group is led by Jalaludin Haqqani, but the ailing leader has relinquished most operational control to one of his sons, Siraj.
Last week, US officials accused Pakistain's spy agency of supporting the Haqqanis in attacks on Western targets in Afghanistan, the most serious allegation yet of Pak duplicity in the 10-year war.
The United States and other members of the international community have in the past blamed Pakistain for allowing the Taliban, and the Haqqanis in particular, to retain safe havens in the country's tribal areas along the Afghan border, particularly in North
Wazoo.The outgoing chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has also claimed that Pakistain's military spy agency helped the group.
However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well...
Haqqani told the BBC Pashtu service that while the group had contacts with a number of spy agencies, including that of Pakistain, during the Soviet invasion, there are now "no such links that could be beneficial."
"Right from the first day of American arrival till this day not only Pak but other Islamic and other non-Islamic countries including America, contacted us and they (are) still doing so. They are asking us to leave the ranks of Islamic Emirates," he said referring to the Taliban leadership.
He said that the outsiders have promised an "important role in the government of Afghanistan," as well as negotiations.
Haqqani also denied that his group took part in the Sept. 20 liquidation of former Afghanistan's Caped President Burhanuddin Rabbani
... the murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan...
. He headed the country's High Peace Council, set up by Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
to work toward a political solution to the decade-long war.
"We haven't killed Burhanuddin Rabbani and this has been said many times by the spokespersons of Islamic Emirate," he said.
Karzai's office has said a special commission investigating Rabbani's death had concluded the attack was planned in Quetta, the Pak city where key Taliban leaders are based. The delegation also said the primary assailant was a Pak citizen.
The BBC said it did not interview Siraj Haqqani directly. Working through an intermediary, the BBC drew a list of questions and received in return an audio file which it was able to verify as being him.