3 senior Haqqani Network leaders to be freed in prisoner exchange

[Valin]

Long War Journal

Bill Roggio

November 12, 2019

Anas Haqqani and Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari (a.k.a. Hafiz Rasheed), at the time of their capture in 2014. NDS photos via Khaama Press.

The Afghan government plans to free three senior Haqqani Network leaders, including a brother and an uncle of deputy Taliban emir Sirajuddin Haqqani, in exchange for an American and an Australian professor who were kidnapped in 2016. The release of the three senior Haqqani leaders will provide a boost to the Taliban’s leadership, but likely will do little to further derail the moribund negotiations between the US and the Taliban.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said that it has to “pay this bitter price” to secure the release of American University of Afghanistan professors Kevin King and Timothy Weeks, who were kidnapped by the Haqqani Network in Kabul in Aug. 2016, TOLONews reported. Both King and Weeks are believed to be in poor health.

In exchange, the Afghan government will free Haji Malik Khan, Siraj’s uncle and a top leader in the network; Anas Haqqani, Siraj’s brother and a propagandist and ambassador; and Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari, the group’s military commander for southeastern Afghanistan.

The US is likely pressuring Afghanistan to complete the swap in the hopes of a positive development in the negotiations, if history is any guide, it won’t have a positive effect. The Taliban has been clear in that past that prisoner exchanges are conducted merely to release their jailed comrades, and that it does not link such exchanges to peace talks.

(Snip)