The Cipher Brief sat down with Bruce Riedel, Director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution to discuss the current threat posed by the Haqqani network. According to Riedel, the Haqqani network “is the most deadly and effective part of the forces opposing American and allied troops in Afghanistan” and may even represent “the dominant faction within the Afghan Taliban.”
The Cipher Brief: How would you assess the Haqqani network’s current capabilities?
Bruce Riedel: The Haqqani network, which is a part of the Afghan Taliban, is the most deadly and effective part of the forces opposing American and allied troops in Afghanistan. It has been for at least several years. The Haqqanis are based in Pakistan, and their primary focus has been on operations in the greater Kabul area. They have been responsible for many of the suicide attacks inside the capitol.
They are very well-organized, well-trained, and disciplined, and by far the deadliest threat to American forces in Afghanistan in the last decade or so.
TCB: Has the Haqqani network always been a part of the Afghan Taliban?
BR: The group merged with the Afghan Taliban before 9/11. They’ve always maintained their own identity, but they merged with the Afghan Taliban before 9/11. After the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001-2002, they moved along with the rest of the Afghan Taliban into Pakistan.
Their main base of operations in Pakistan is around the city of Peshawar. They are heavily represented on the higher committee, the Quetta Shura, that is the governing body of the Afghan Taliban, and their influence on the overall Afghan Taliban has been growing since the death of former Taliban leader Mullah Omar a few years ago. It has probably increased even further since the death of Mullah Omar’s successor, Mullah Mansour, in an America drone strike earlier this year. They may now be the dominant faction within the Afghan Taliban, but they certainly see themselves as a part of the larger Afghan Taliban insurgency.
TCB: What are the group’s strategic objectives?
BR: The Haqqani network seeks to reestablish the Islamic emirate that the Afghan Taliban had before 2001. The Haqqanis have also had long-standing ties to al Qaeda. While they don’t necessarily share al Qaeda’s global jihad agenda, they don’t oppose it either. While their relationship with al Qaeda receives less publicity today than it used to, there is no question that there continues to be a relationship between the Haqqanis and the al Qaeda core led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is hiding somewhere in Pakistan and could very-well be hiding somewhere with the assistance of the Haqqani network.
TCB: What is the relationship between the organization and the Pakistani government?
BR: To all intents and purposes, as Admiral Mike Mullen (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) said memorably a few years ago, the Haqqani network operates as an extension of the Pakistani intelligence services. The Haqqanis and the Pakistani intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have connections that date back to the 1970s. They became particularly close in the 1980s in the war against the Soviet Union. They receive safe havens and they receive sanctuary from the Pakistani intelligence services, and the Pakistani intelligence service often cooperates in the planning of operations with the Haqqani network, including planning of operations against American targets.
Pakistan is a country that can be described as an army with a country attached to it. And it’s an army that has decided to have a relationship with the Haqqani network. The elected civilian government is much less enthusiastic about this but really doesn’t call the shots. It’s the army high command who decides that Pakistan is going to sponsor groups like the Haqqanis, and they are the ones who are calling the shots today.
The Haqqani network is what the Pakistani government calls “good insurgents,” that is insurgents who focus on Pakistan’s enemies abroad, not on Pakistan itself. But as American Presidents have been saying since the 1990s, by tolerating groups like the Haqqani network, Pakistan has a Frankenstein in its own country. And we’re right - it has created a Frankenstein, but so far, the Pakistani military doesn’t see it that way.
TCB: Do other factions within the Afghan Taliban carry as much weight as the Haqqani network?
BR: There are other factions. The Taliban has always been a complex group. A lot of it is based on tribal and regional affinities. The Haqqanis operate in the eastern part of Afghanistan. Other groups operate in the south or the north. But there is a fair degree of overall coordination, especially on military matters and also on their political objectives, which is to reestablish the Islamic emirate and to drive all foreign forces out of Afghanistan.
TCB: How have the U.S., Afghanistan, and Pakistan worked to counter the threat posed by the Haqqani network?
BR: The U.S. has sought to encourage the development of an Afghan National Security Force – army, police, and air force – that are strong enough to deal with the Haqqani network and other Taliban forces with a minimal amount of outside assistance. I think that strategy is likely to be continued by whomever takes office in January. We don’t want to put tens of thousands of American troops back on the ground in Afghanistan for obvious reasons. On the other hand, we don’t want to see an Afghan government overthrown by the Taliban and risk Afghanistan again becoming a safe haven for international terrorism.
It would be to everyone’s advantage if at some point the Afghan Taliban was willing to pursue a political settlement to the war, but there is really no sign that that is on the horizon at this point.
TCB: What more can be done to counter this threat?
BR: One option is for the U.S. to conduct more operations against Taliban targets inside Pakistan. I mentioned earlier the drone strike that killed the Afghan Taliban Leader Mullah Mansour in Baluchistan this past spring, and in my own view, we should look for other opportunities like that to make these safe havens unsafe.
We don’t have to conduct operations at the tempo that we did against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan over the last decade, but selective, periodic targeting of Haqqani network leaders and groups, as well as others in the Afghan Taliban, I think would help to change the dynamic and take away the sense that there is a safe sanctuary inside Pakistan.
