Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the Taliban’s infamous Haqqani network, died this week, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
Haqqani, who passed away Monday at 71 from poor health, was a former United States ally turned ferocious enemy. The elderly founder of the Afghanistan-based rebel faction was once hailed as a freedom fighter by US President Ronald Reagan.
Haqqani was among the Afghan mujahedeen, or holy warriors, Washington backed in the 1980s to fight the Soviet Union’s invading army that had been sent to Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up the pro-Moscow government.
Haqqani was once praised by the late US Congressman Charlie Wilson as “goodness personified.”
After 10 years of occupation, Moscow negotiated an exit from Afghanistan in an agreement that eventually led to the collapse of Kabul’s communist government and a takeover by the mujahedeen.
Haqqani joined the Taliban when the group overran Kabul in September 1996, expelling feuding mujahedeen groups, whose battles left the Afghan capital in ruins.
Since then, the Haqqani network has been among the fiercest foes fighting American and NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan.
In 2012, Washington declared the network a terrorist organization. Haqqani had not been heard from in several years and reports of his death were widespread in 2015.
Declassified US cables called Haqqani a “moderate socialist” who did not embrace the Taliban’s strictures. “Haqqani functions more in the military area, and is not a force in setting Taliban political or social issues,” the cables read.
Considered the most formidable of the Taliban’s fighting forces, the network has been linked to some of the more audacious anti-imperialist actions in Afghanistan.
Because Parkinson disease had left him paralyzed for the last decade of his life, Haqqani’s network has been led by his son Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is also deputy head of the Taliban.
