American envoy to Afghanistan raises fingers against Haqqani network

Rejecting the capacity of Afghan Taliban of holding a strike like Sunday, Ryan Crocker, the United States (US) envoy to Afghanistan speculated that Haqqani network were involved in the incident.

While speaking to the media, he pointed-out fingers on Haqqani network, whose fighters are based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. In his view, the Afghan Taliban were really good at issuing statements but less good at actually combating.

He observed, “My guess, based on previous experience here, is this is a set of Haqqani network operations out of North Waziristan and the Pakistani tribal areas. Frankly I don’t think the Taliban is good enough”.

Earlier, the American officials accused Pakistan of having support to the Haqqanis last year after an attack on the U.S. embassy and other targets in Kabul that it charged on the group.

The Haqqani network is one of the most divisive issues between Pakistan and America. The bilateral ties were badly damaged last year by the unilateral US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

Islamabad was repeatedly asked by the US to launch an operation against Haqqani network, which is reportedly to be based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan.

The efforts to normalize the bilateral relations between the strategic allies could be hampered by evidences that the Haqqani network was involved in the incident.

With explosions and gunfire rocking the diplomatic enclave in the capital on Sunday, suicide bombers struck across Afghanistan in coordinated attacking campaign. According to the reports, militants took over buildings and tried to enter parliament.

Apart from Kabul, the capital, militants attacked government buildings in Logar province, the airport in Jalalabad, and a police facility in the town of Gardez in Paktya province.

A spokesperson of the Taliban claimed that they marked the start of their annual spring offensive which heralds the fighting season. A lot of suicide attackers will be in action in the coming days, he added.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson reported said, “These attacks are the beginning of the spring offensive and we had planned them for months”.

He also added that the ambush was a retribution for a series of incidents involving American troops in Afghanistan including the burning of the Holy Quran at a Nato base and the massacre of 17 civilians by a US soldier and vowed that there would be more such attacks in the future.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=19097

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Apr 16 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.