Taliban’s Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani killed: Why it matters
Al Jazeera
The most high-profile assassination in Afghanistan since 2021 has sparked questions over divisions within the Taliban.
The Taliban’s minister of refugees, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, was killed along with four others in a suicide attack in Kabul on Wednesday.
The deceased minister was a senior leader within the Haqqani Network, the Taliban’s closest ally which has jointly controlled power in Afghanistan since 2021.
Haqqani’s killing was claimed by the ISIL (ISIS)-affiliate in the Khorasan Province, ISKP, and marks the most significant assassination of a leader in Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration since the ouster of the United States-backed government of former President Ashraf Ghani three years ago, say analysts.
The bombing, they say, has raised questions about internal tensions within the Taliban and its allies, the influence of the ISKP in the country and security in Afghanistan more broadly.
Haqqani was the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister and the senior-most leader of the Haqqani Network.
