WASHINGTON: A top US senator pressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday to add the militant Haqqani network to a formal terrorism blacklist, citing recent attacks in Afghanistan.
“I request that the State Department take the additional step of listing the network as a Foreign Terrorism Organization and look forward to receiving your response,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein.
Feinstein, a Democrat, said “there is no question that the Haqqani network meets the standards” for joining the list.
“It conducts attacks against US targets and personnel in Afghanistan, and poses a continuing threat to American, Afghan, and allied personnel and interests,” she said in a statement.
Her comments came after the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, charged that the Haqqani network “acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.” Washington blames Haqqani militants for an assault on the US embassy in Kabul last week, a June attack on the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, and a bloody September 10 truck bombing in Afghanistan’s Wardak province.
The Haqqani network is probably the most dangerous faction in the Afghan Taliban. A CIA asset turned al Qaeda ally, the United States in the 1980s funneled arms and cash to the Haqqani faction to counter Soviet forces.
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