U.S. designating Haqqani network a terrorist organization
An undated photo of Jalaluddin Haqqani, patriarch of the Haqqani network, a fundamentalist Islamic group based near the Afghan border in Pakistan. / CBS
Updated at 12:40 p.m. ET
© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. (CBS/AP) VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - The Obama administration on Friday declared the insurgent Haqqani network a terrorist body, a move that could undermine Afghan peace efforts and test fragile U.S.-Pakistani relations.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she notified Congress of her decision, which bans Americans from doing any business with members of the Pakistan-based militant group and blocks any assets it holds in the United States.
"We also continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military, and intelligence pressure on the network, demonstrating the United States' resolve to degrade the organization's ability to execute violent attacks," she said in a statement.
According to a senior U.S. official, it will likely take seven to 10 days for the designation process to be completed. The Haqqani network has been behind a large number of the attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, and which U.S. officials have long pushed Pakistan's leaders to target more aggressively.
Designating the Haqqani network a terrorist organization is a complicated political decision as the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and pushes for a reconciliation pact to end more than a decade of warfare.
WorldWatch blog: The story of Afghanistan's Jalaladin Haqqani
Enraged by a string of high-profile attacks on U.S. and NATO troops, Congress set a Sunday deadline for the administration to make a decision. U.S. officials say there were disagreements within the administration over what to decide.
The U.S. already has placed sanctions on many Haqqani leaders and is targeting its members militarily but has held back from formally designating the al Qaeda-linked network a terrorist group amid concerns about hampering peace efforts in Afghanistan and U.S. relations with Pakistan.
The Haqqani network is also believed to be holding U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl captive - the only U.S. service member held by militants in the region.
Reacting to the news, senior commanders of the group told Reuters it showed the U.S. wasn't sincere about peace efforts in Afghanistan and that Bergdalh would face "hardship" as a result.
Nadeem Hotiana, spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said it was an "internal matter for the United States. It is not our business. The Haqqanis are not Pakistani nationals. We will continue to work with all international partners including the U.S. in combating extremism and terrorism."
Bowe Bergdahl: Prisoner of war, politics and diplomacy
The U.S. long has branded the network among the biggest threats to American and allied forces in Afghanistan, and to Afghanistan's long-term stability. A subsidiary of the Taliban, it is based in northern Pakistan but crosses the border to launch attacks, including a rocket-propelled grenade assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO compound in Kabul in September.
But the group's increasingly prominent role in the insurgency and its close links to Pakistan's intelligence service complicate matters.
The Obama administration has been trying to coax Afghanistan's fighting groups into peace talks, offering the prospect of a Qatar-based political office for insurgents and even the transfer of several prisoners being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Negotiations have been dormant for months, and the Haqqanis have been among the least interested in talking.
The group also has enjoyed a close relationship with Pakistan. The U.S. and its often reluctant counterterrorism ally have been at loggerheads over the Haqqanis for years, with Washington accusing Islamabad of giving the network a free hand in the remote North Waziristan region and even providing it with some logistical support.
Pakistan says that its forces are stretched thin in fighting an insurgency that already has killed more than 30,000 people and that it cannot also take on the Haqqanis. Many analysts attribute the military's reluctance to its historical ties to the Haqqani network's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and an assessment that the group can be an important ally in Afghanistan after U.S. forces withdraw in 2014.
In July, Congress set a deadline to prod the Obama administration into imposing blanket sanctions on the group by designating it a foreign terrorist organization. If Clinton and other officials had decided to withhold the designation, they would have had to explain why.
U.S. officials cited disagreements about the designation. Some favor the designation, while others worry that it would elevate the Haqqanis from their current status as an amorphous, tribal movement. That could end up hurting counterterrorism efforts by increasing their appeal among would-be jihadists.
An undated image believed to show Badruddin Haqqani.
/ CBSLast month, the U.S. scored a major counterterror success when an unmanned drone strike in Pakistan near the Afghan border was said to have killed one of Jalaluddin Haqqani's sons, Badruddin.
Badruddin was considered a vital part of the Haqqani structure.
The State Department said in May 2011 that Badruddin Haqqani sat on the Miram Shah Shura, a group that controls all Haqqani network activities and coordinates attacks in southeastern Afghanistan. It also blamed him for the 2008 kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde.
Jalaluddin Haqqani created his network while serving as a leader in the decade-long insurgency against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which began in 1979. He developed extensive foreign contacts, getting money, weapons and supplies from Pakistani intelligence, which in turn received billions of dollars from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
He served as Afghanistan's justice minister after the Soviets left and minister of tribal and border affairs after Taliban fundamentalists seized power in 1996. He joined the Taliban insurgency when the U.S. helped overthrow the regime after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Haqqani effectively retired in 2005, passing responsibility for day-to-day operations to his son Sirajuddin, who is accused of expanding the network's kidnapping and extortion operations. Reports also accuse the Haqqanis of lucrative drug trafficking and smuggling activity.
The U.S. already had designated Haqqani and his sons individually as terrorists.
Popular on CBSNews.com
- Boat hijack stokes tension between N. Korea, China
- British flower show in full bloom 16 Photos
- China probes rice tainted with cancer-causing cadmium
- Hezbollah suffers heavy losses fighting inside Syria
- Israel and Syria exchange fire on Golan Heights
- Lebanon reportedly stopping Syria refugees at border
- Syria activists: 31 Hezbollah fighters killed in Qusair
- Russia shows accused U.S. spy heading home
The root problem in Pakistan is corruption and lack of education. The educated classes are not so educated when examined closely. They exhibit clear signs of bias at the state, military and media, not to mention the various psychotic religious clerics who are without question lacking in a real education.
It remains to be seen how long the US, India and other nations can tolerate the blatant ignorance and intolerance that Pakistanis routinely exhibit.
The US is not stupid. It knows who the most corrupt leaders in Pakistan are, where they live and who they communicate with. Pakistan would be foolish beyond belief not to get its act together take the courageous route to clean up their act, ban religious extremism and several all ties to state sponsored terrorism.
The Pakistani military and civilian leaders must make these procolamations public and offer not only lip service, but back them up with concrete steps. They need only look at sound laws in other nations that have been successfully applied for centuries.
Anything less only invites a possible future confrontation with the West, India and possibly China too.
Message to Pakistan: Take the courageous route. Look outside your boders for answers. Educate your people from the top down in a more respectable, responsible way.
Now the U.S. tries to scare the Haqqanis that if they insist on kicking the U.S. out and form a government, the U.S. "terrorist designation" will prevent many countries from recognizing their regime! That gimmick wouldn't make any difference to Haqqanis because standing up to, or refusing to negotiate with the U.S., is a badge of honor for them in the eyes of the Muslim world!
As for the U.S. hope, that its rich Gulf allies would refrain from supporting the Taliban with its "terrorist label" slapped on them, that notion is misguided. They would do it clandestinely as they did during the Mullah Omar Taliban rule.
The U.S. "terrorist label" on the Haqqani Taliban, therefore, is another lollipop of the Obama presidential campaign, and a U.S. admission that they are unbeatable. The label, therefore, accords them prestige, and -with Pakistani help- it establishes them as the undefeated future rulers of Afghanistan! The $ trillions and GIs lives we lost there went all to waste! Nikos Retsos, retired professor
As a US vet the bulk of the US direct combat action is complete. The time now is for diplomatic/political improvements between Pakistan and it's neighbors.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Then change the open ended operation to one with a clear goal, get those damn WMD's out of Pakistan's hands. They are clearly untrustworthy of possessing such weapons. In South Africa, for example, their WMD's were attacked and they were lucky to hold them, then petitioned to destroy them...very wise move.
That comment is so full of irony I don't know where to start, maybe because most christian are racist to the point most people think muslim is synonymous of terrorist and killer, or maybe because muslims are the ones that have suffered horrible attacks for no reason at all? Seriously the US really should just leave middle east alone, I mean what have they done to you? what have they done to anyone you know? just because a small group of demented people did something bad, we have to destroy the whole middle east? Do you think the US does not have serial killers and religious extremists? Can you explain just why do you think it is a good idea to intervene in a country's internal politic? Don't you know the US intervention in the middle-east stirred the whole mess that is going up?
At this points terrorism in the middle east is shifting from just madmen to people who have started to hate the US for all they have done to their country (I blame Bush for starting a senseless war, just to steal their oil)