# U.S. pegs Haqqani as most lethal foe



## DA SWO (Oct 19, 2011)

Think someone here pegged these guys as bad a long time ago.....

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/17/us-pegs-haqqani-as-most-lethal-foe/

The family criminal enterprise known as the Haqqani Network conducts terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan by keeping in constant phone contact with its suicide bombers before and during attacks.
This level of sophistication, coupled with hands-on terrorist operations, is one reason the U.S. now considers Haqqani its most lethal enemy, even more so than al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The network is operating out of a safe haven across the border in the town of Miram Shah, Pakistan, with near impunity and little to fear fromNATO troops or Islamabad.
Meanwhile, al Qaeda is using Afghanistan as a training ground for Arab recruits. If the recruits do well in the fight, they are reprogrammed to attack the United States.
This assessment of al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network is contained among roughly 1,250 pages of documents and exhibits released by U.S. Central Command in the investigation of the Aug. 4 CH-47 helicopter downing that killed 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALs.
Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Colt and his team began the investigation by receiving a briefing in Kabul from senior U.S. military war planners and intelligence officers. CentCom included a declassified 134-page transcript of the briefing. Gen. Colt wanted to understand the enemy inAfghanistan and how a special operations task force decides to target them.
The network is led by Sirajuddin Haqqani and his brother Badruddin.
“[They have a] tremendous amount of ability to push forces cross the board,” one unnamed briefer told Gen. Colt. “We consider them the most lethal, resolute and resilient of the insurgent element we are fighting today. They have the ability to push forces across, conduct attacks.”
The briefer said the U.S. has intercepted calls between Haqqani — which one is not specified — and his fighters as they carried out an attack.
As an example, the briefer talked about Haqqani deploying nine suicide bombers to attack the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul in June, one of the most brazen attacks in Afghanistan’s well-fortified capital.
The briefer said: “The end of June, the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, these guys all had suicide vests on, they were using small arms, [and] as they were attacking from the roof of the hotel, they were calling back [situation reports] to Badruddin Haqqani, who was just across the border during this. So very hands-on. See, it is very easy for them to attack and get back across the border, lick their wounds, re-arm, re-equip, and prepare for another attack at a later date.”
All nine attackers were killed. The intercepts are the likely reason theNATO command so quickly named Haqqani as the mastermind.
In one of his last public statements as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen accused Islamabad of providing Haqqani a safe haven and aiding the network in attacks in Afghanistan.
The briefing also disclosed that al Qaeda is repositioning fighters fromPakistan’s tribal areas into Afghanistan’s Kunar province. A briefer saidal Qaeda is under pressure, presumedly from Pakistani forces, prompting the move to a rugged border area largely abandoned byNATO troops.
“The other thing is they are very much invested in the Taliban fight,” the briefer stated. “If the Taliban wins at the end of the day over here inAfghanistan, then that is a win for al Qaeda. So they are ‘all in’ as far as the Taliban is concerned.”

You can click on the link for the entire story.

Nice to see that the people in charge are publicly calling this group out; I just hope it is not a re-election stunt.


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## DA SWO (Oct 19, 2011)

Interestingly enough, this story was also posted.  (I doubt the accuracy of this report because the data source appears to be Pakistani, but thought we could get some good discussion from this)

*US forces 'massing on Afghanistan-Pakistan border'*


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...s-massing-on-Afghanistan-Pakistan-border.html

*US forces are massing on the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan amid reports of an imminent drone missile offensive against fighters from the feared Haqqani Network, a Taliban faction which operates from safe havens in Pakistan's North Waziristan Agency, Pakistan Army sources have confirmed.*



The scale of the American build-up, including helicopter gunships, heavy artillery and hundreds of American and Afghan troops, caused panic in north Waziristan where tribal militias who feared they could be targeted gathered in the capital Miranshah to coordinate their response.

Local officials in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) warned that Pakistan's armed forces would repel any incursion across the border by American forces, but military sources in Islamabad and Afghan officials suggested the build-up was part of a coordinated operation.

Relations between Washington and Islamabad have deteriorated dramatically in recent months as American officials increased pressure on Pakistan to launch an offensive against the Haqqani Network, which mounts attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan from bases in North Waziristan.

Islamabad has fiercely resisted American pressure, claiming its forces are overstretched and stating its priority is to fight Taliban factions which have declared war on Pakistan, rather than those, like the Haqqanis, who focus on cross-border attacks on Nato forces.

Last month Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently accused Pakistan's ISI intelligence service of plotting the attack on the US embassy in Kabul with Haqqani network fighters and claimed the militant group was a "veritable arm" of the ISI.
slamabad and Washington have traded accusations since then, but the massing of American troops on the Afghan border appears to suggest some understanding may have been reached.
According to Pakistan Army sources, the U.S had informed Islamabad about the planned build-up and described it as part of a "cordon and search operation" in which Haqqani Network fighters will be pushed over the Afghan border from North Waziristan and then "encircled, arrested or killed" by American forces lying in wait.
A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul declined to comment on the build-up. A spokesman for the Pakistan Army said it had not been informed about the number of American troops on the border but it was reported that American and Afghan troops had established curfews in eastern Khost province, conducted house to house searches, established checkpoints and occupied hilltops close to Ghulam Khan on the Pakistan side of the border.
The Haqqani Network and militant allies have increased in strength on both sides of the border over the last two years and have been blamed for a summer increase in cross-border raids on Nato positions in eastern Afghanistan.


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## AWP (Oct 19, 2011)

"Hundreds of troops", huh? Yeah...if we were invading PK we'd do it with "hundreds" and not "tens of thousands."

PK's stirring the pot. The gov't has been on the brink of collapse for some time now so if they can stir up the locals it takes the heat off them and rallies the populace around the flag.

The Kunar just hates outsiders period, so I don't know how AlQ will make that relationship work for them. You're talking about a region of Afghanistan that didn't convert to Islam until the 1890's and that was after their fellow Afghans invaded and began putting them to the knife. Kunar/ Nuristan just doesn't have any love for any outsiders.


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## QC (Oct 19, 2011)

The "Abdul, phone home" option was used in the Mumbai raid also.


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## Marauder06 (Oct 19, 2011)

SOWT said:


> Think someone here pegged these guys as bad a long time ago.....
> ...



HQN who?  Sorry, never heard of them ;)


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## Brill (Oct 21, 2011)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15399820

*Hillary Clinton: US held meeting with Haqqani network*

The US has held a meeting with representatives of the Haqqani militant network, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has revealed.


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## AWP (Oct 21, 2011)

The only Americans who should meet with the Haqqanis belong to JSOC.


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