Two Al-Qaeda Branches Offer Condolences Over Haqqani's Assassination

In separate messages, the two branches of al-Qaeda condemned the assassination of Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani, the Taliban's minister of refugees and a prominent member of the Haqqani network.

The two groups harshly criticised ISIS, saying that instead of fighting Israel, it is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani, a prominent leader of the Haqqani Network, was killed last week at the Ministry of Refugees in Kabul in a suicide attack. The assassination of Haqqani was claimed by ISIS-K.

In a message in Pashto on Tuesday, al-Qaeda al-Jihad called Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani a "great mujahid". In its statement, the group expressed its condolences to the Taliban leader over the killing of Haqqani.

In a separate statement, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), another branch of al-Qaeda, called Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani "one of the strong mountains of jihad" and said, "He came from a noble jihadi family that was a stronghold and comrade of Sheikh Jalaluddin Haqqani on the path of jihad. Today, his life ended well and he was martyred after decades of jihad and perseverance against the occupiers."

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda which operates specifically in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The al-Qaeda statement said that ISIS had been heavily attacked, saying it had "undertaken a task that the Americans were unable to perform after their withdrawal".

"The religious duty against ISIS is to kill and destroy them, because they are a great evil and a great calamity," it added.

The statement expressed sympathy with the Haqqani family.

The Haqqani Network has long had close ties with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in 2022 at the guest house of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's interior minister, in Kabul.

According to the United Nations Security Council report, the Taliban have continued their alliance and cooperation with al-Qaeda. According to the report, al-Qaeda has rehabilitated eight of its bases in Afghanistan and is in the process of rebuilding.