New Delhi/Islamabad: Afghanistan’s former spy chief has warned that the Pakistan-backed Haqqani network (HQN) is helping banned Islamist terror group al-Qaeda to plan another 9/11-style terror attack against the West.
In a series of tweets posted on Sunday, the former director of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil revealed that al-Qaeda continues to be backed by the HQN based in Pakistan.
“If state sponsors of terrorism in the region are not stopped we will see another 9/11-style attack in future. Al-Qaeda’s al-Zawahiri, Abu Muhammad Al Masri and Saif ul Adel are still planning attacks in the West with the backing of the HQN which is based in Pakistan,” he tweeted.
An offshoot of the Taliban, the HQN headed by Maulvi Jalaluddin’s son Sirajuddin Haqqani, is an Afghan Islamist terror group fighting against the US-led NATO forces and the democratically elected government of Afghanistan. The network in the 1980s was backed by the CIA during the Ronald Reagan administration to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Jalaluddin Haqqani for his network, recruited Arab national Osama bin Laden who later founded al-Qaeda with a pan-Islamic objective. Al-Qaeda remains closely associated with the HQN whose objective of establishing Islamic rule is restricted to Afghanistan. (IANS)
