'A Pashtun Tribe': Pakistan PM Slams US Over 'Complete Ignorance' in Judging Haqqanis as Terrorists

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday slammed the US over its foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) label for the Haqqani Network, also fending off allegations that his country’s spy agency - Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - had been “funding” the jihadist group during the "War on Terror".

“It is complete ignorance. Americans didn’t understand what the Haqqani Network was. Haqqani is a tribe. It is a Pashtun tribe living in Afghanistan. Forty years ago, when the Afghan jihad took place, we had five million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Amongst them were a few of the Haqqanis. And the Haqqanis were mujahideen fighting the Soviets”, said Khan in response to a question from his interviewer Becky Anderson.

The sharp response from Prime Minister Khan came to a question about former US Joint Chief of Staff Michael Mullen describing the Haqqani Network as a “veritable arm of the ISI” back in 2011.

The Pakistani leader also pointed out that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been critical of Pakistan’s role during the American-led counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The US State Department designated the Haqqani Network as an FTO on 19 September 2012.

“They were born in the refugee camps of Pakistan. So, what they were asking us was… that these refugee camps, three million people of them living there in these camps... which one of them was the Taliban and which was not”, Khan said during the interview, responding to US criticism.

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Khan further rejected claims that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was “funding” the Haqqani Network, which has emerged as one of the most influential sub-groupings within the Taliban since it took over Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on 15 August.

“You know the total budget of Pakistan? It is $50 billion for 220 million people. .. Did we have the capacity to fund another war? We could barely meet our expenses”, Khan quipped.

The Pakistan Prime Minister lamented the fact that his country was like a “hired gun” for the US during the War on Terror. "We were supposed to make them (the US) win the war in Afghanistan, which we never could,” he told CNN.

Meanwhile, Khan’s defence of the Haqqani Network has triggered widespread criticism on social media, with observers rejecting the Pakistani prime minister's categorisation of the Haqqani Network as a tribe.

“All students of Darool Alum Haqqania Akora Khattak seminary in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are called as Haqqanis, including Jalaluddin Haqqani, who played an important role in the defeat of Soviet Union in Afghanistan”, prominent Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said on Twitter.

Jalaluddin Haqqani is the founder of the Haqqani Network. His son Sirajuddin Haqqani has been leading the group since his father’s death in 2018. Despite having a bounty of $10 million on his head, Sirajuddin was appointed as the interior minister of the newly unveiled Taliban Cabinet this month.

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Khan’s remarks come against the backdrop of Pakistan lobbying other governments to give the Taliban a “chance” to govern and “incentivise” the group’s positive gestures, which include the group staying good to its commitment of safely allowing Afghans and other foreign nationals to leave the country.

"No puppet government in Afghanistan is supported by the people… So rather than sitting here and thinking that we can control them, we should incentivise them”, the Pakistani prime minister said during the interview.

The Western allies, including the US and the European Union (EU), have said that they won't rush to recognise the Taliban government and that they would judge the group not by its words, but by its actions.