Feared militant from shadowy faction that killed hundreds is now central to G7 talks

Of all the Taliban leaders that the G7 hopes to engage with on the future of Afghanistan, few have a record as bad as Sirajuddin Haqqani. The Taliban’s deputy leader currently has a $10 million (£7.5 million) US reward for information on his head and is accused of overseeing some of the worst atrocities of the militants’ insurgent campaign. The head of the notorious Haqqani network for more than a decade, he is blamed for bombings and assaults which have killed hundreds of civilians.

As the son of the legendary antisoviet Mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, he grew up steeped in jihad. The senior Haqqani enjoyed CIA backing to fight the Russians in the 1980s, but in the 1990s, he joined the Taliban government, taking a position as minister of tribal and border affairs. When the Taliban were overthrown, Haqqani stuck with them, rebuilding his network of fighters from a safe haven in Pakistan and spreading into south eastern Afghanistan. As his father aged, Sirajuddin took on more day-to-day control of operations and is thought to have led the network’s operations for more than a decade before Jalaluddin was declared dead in 2018.

While the network was largely subsumed into the Taliban, it maintained some autonomy and became known for its close ties to Pakistan and its role in atrocities.

Sirajuddin’s wanted notice says the network was considered “the most lethal insurgent group targeting coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan” and was linked to al-qaeda. With Sirajuddin at the helm, the network became known for its high-profile “spectaculars” at the height of the international presence.

These included a June 2011 attack on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel that killed 11 civilians, a Sep 2011 truck bombing in Wardak province that wounded 77 US soldiers and a 19-hour attack on the American Embassy and Nato headquarters which killed 16

Afghans, including at least six children. America also blamed the Haqqanis for a truck bombing outside the German embassy that killed 150 in 2017 and a bomb in an ambulance that killed 100 near an interior ministry building in 2018. At the height of US frustration that Pakistan would not rein in the Taliban operating from its territory, Washington called the Haqqanis a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence agency.

Sirajuddin’s battlefield reputation and his family pedigree added to the surprise when his name appeared last spring on an opinion piece in the New York Times. The article, published days before Donald Trump finalised his withdrawal deal, declared the fearsome commander was now “tired of war”.

“I am convinced that the killing and the maiming must stop,” he wrote. Yet the Taliban subsequently rejected all calls for a ceasefire and have now completed their military takeover. As Taliban leaders hammer out details of their new government, Sirajuddin remains one of the most influential people in their movement.