Wanted Taliban Deputy Leader Seen In Public For The First Time

The Taliban's second-in-command, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has appeared in public for the first time since his organisation took control of Afghanistan six months ago.

Haqqani, who is the country's interior minister and the leader of the terrorist Haqqani network, was seen at a police graduation ceremony at the Kabul Police Academy today, Saturday, March 5. He's currently wanted by the FBI for questioning, with a $10 million bounty on his head.

Speaking in public in front of the media for the first time, Haqqani gave a speech in which he called on officers to treat people 'professionally and well,' and claimed the Taliban was 'not a threat' to any other countries.

According to Afghanistan's TOLO News, Haqqani also called upon Afghans who had fled the country upon the Taliban's return to power to come home, reportedly claiming they would not face reprisals for their decision to leave.

He's also said to have highlighted the presence of women among the police graduates, amid fierce criticism from the west of the Taliban's repression of women's rights.

Haqqani - whose precise age is unknown but is thought to be in his 40s - is wanted in connection with a number of terrorist attacks carried out in Afghanistan over the last 15 years by the Haqqani network, which was founded by his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Formed in the 1980s, the Haqqani network has been deemed responsible for some of Afghanistan's most deadly bombings, leading the Wall Street Journal to dub them the Taliban's 'most radical and violent branch.'

Among others, they've been blamed for the massive truck bomb explosion which killed more than 150 people in Kabul in 2017, while Haqqani has previously admitted planning a 2008 attempt to assassinate then then-Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Haqqani himself was appointed as Minister of the Interior by the Taliban in September 2021. The move led to condemnation in the United States, where Haqqani remains on the FBI's wanted list 'for questioning in connection with the January 2008 attack on a hotel in Kabul that killed six people, including an American citizen.'

Since the Taliban's return to power in August 2021 the country has seen massive swathes of its populations driven into poverty and hunger, while the group has been accused of carrying out revenge killings and bringing in repressive new laws adhering to its fundamental Islamist doctrine.

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