Haqqani network

He had been working on a book about American involvement in the region.

For the next seven months, he was held in Afghanistan and Pakistan by a Taliban faction of the Haqqani network.

On the night of June 19th, he and Ludin escaped from a compound in northern Waziristan.

During his captivity, The New York Times worked to suppress news of his kidnapping, fearing that the publicity would put him at risk.

You know? I mean, so it wasn't just Al-Qaeda that he was a leader in.

What else was he doing? You know, what was his relationship with the Taliban? Like, what was-- and, and Haqqanis and others, like, in building this all out.

There was never any of that stuff to, to explain what he was doing.

And that, to me, was the more im- important contextually other than just having the bin Laden name and being p- uh, the face of Al-Qaeda for a brief period of time, or I guess still is in this 9/11 video.

Oh, yes, hello.

We'd like to tell you that there's been a major military victory by the Haqqani Network.

I said, yes, very important.

Okay, the BBC, the Haqqani Network, we'd really like to get you to cover it.

I said, oh yes, the BBC would love to cover that story.

And they said, great, who's coming? And I said, well, me.

And a lot of times with the BDA, the...

Jihadists, the insurgents were from Haqqani Network, which is Pakistani Taliban, Arab countries, and Chechnya.

And there was a Chechen mortar team in our area that was pretty good for a while.

They're no longer with us, thankfully.

But, but like you said, I bel- yeah, being that this is, uh, seems to be majority Haqqani network, which is a mo- you know, a much more aggressive sect of the Taliban, that's, that would absolutely e-explain this.

They, they'd probably be like, "We, we didn't sign that, you did."

Yeah, and I mean- Well, the Haqqanis, they, they, they kind of c- they consider themselves part of the Taliban to a point.

They do have connections with other terrorist organizations, uh, like Al-Qaeda, still have connections to Al-Qaeda.

Uh, when incidents like that would happen, the Taliban would just blame ISIS-K.

Uh, and, uh, were they blaming that on ISIS-K as well?

Uh, officially to this day, that was an ISIS-K bomber, that that was a ISIS-K cell that had planned and set up that attack.

Um, you can hear from other people, see if the Taliban had any, like, uh, I know listening to the Sean Ryan show with, uh, Sarah Adams, who works for him now, um, CIA targeter, who went on, she talked about that a little bit, saying that the Haqqanis in particular knew and kind of assisted in that a little bit, and so some Taliban leadership, they kind of knew and assisted in that as well out of, uh, Kandahar.

We need to understand what we know so far about the Taliban, their relationship to ISIS-K, and especially the Haqqani Network, which my understanding is, is a stand-in for the al-Qaeda group now, today.

But also there's evidence that they worked with when it suited them.

ISIS-K, who were the Haqqanis and where were the Haqqanis during this evacuation, especially on the 26th of August? Where were they, Jerry?

It's a great question.

So I am an investigator on the House Foreign Affairs Committee looking into the Afghanistan withdrawal.

I'll just note that I'm just here as the author, the co-author of this book.

But the relationship that the Haqqani Network had with all these groups is very important.

So the Haqqanis are a key force inside the Taliban.

And so what happened in Afghanistan, in my view, is an astonishing degree of self-delusion about the nature of the war and the nature of the enemy.

We were fighting a transnational terrorist organization that was intertwined with the Haqqani Network, that was intertwined with al-Qaeda, that was supported by our so-called friend, the Pakistanis and the ISI.

But what were our assumptions about the nature of war over many of those years, especially, I would say, from the Obama administration on, when President Obama in 2009, remember, he announces the so-called surge into Afghanistan, and at the same time gives the date for the withdrawal.

How the hell does that work? I remember it well.

But for years, you could literally follow the entire route on TikTok.

I had this individual reach out to me on LinkedIn, and he was actually connected to the Haqqanis.

I asked a couple people, and he said, "Hey, I'm going to America." I was like, "Don't do it." And eight days later...

So he was in Afghanistan.

I want to ask you one more question about terror groups before we move on to, I want to ask about the Taliban government a little bit and then talk about the Sahel.

But someone recently told me that they believe that ISIL-K is closer to the Haqqani network and that that is causing an issue with Taliban senior leadership.

Would you agree with that assessment?

I wouldn't necessarily...

So the nature of the Karni network and some of those connections is something that we look at.

But again, it's hard to get solid information.

The Haqqani Network itself is listed.

It's a listed entity.