Following the murder of a tribal elder in Nangarhar province, residents in a protest briefly blocked the Jalalabad-Torkham highway. According to local sources, Jamil Khan, a tribal elder, was taken out of his house and killed on Friday in Hazarnaw area of Momand district.
A source told Afghanistan International that the protesters opened the highway to traffic after the Taliban's local authorities pledged to address the case.
Jamil Khan's family said that the tribal elder had no enmity with any person in the past.
So far, no person or group has claimed responsibility for his murder.
Local sources said that the killing of tribal elders and clerics in this province has increased after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
A week ago, in Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province, another tribal elder had been killed by unidentified people when he was returning from the mosque.
Yue Xiaoyong, China's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, visited New Delhi to discuss Afghan affairs with Indian officials. Xiaoyong said that he spoke about peace and stability in Afghanistan during a meeting with JP Singh, Joint Secretary of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India has not officially said anything about the visit of the Chinese Special Envoy on Thursday.
After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, this is the first meeting between senior officials of China and India with a focus on Afghanistan.
China was one of the few countries whose embassy stayed open and active in Kabul after the fall of Republic government. Although China has not officially recognized the Taliban, it has stressed that Beijing has friendly relations with the group.
India closed its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban came to power, but in June 2022, New Delhi reopened its embassy by sending a technical team to Kabul.
The Taliban released a video on Twitter on Saturday claiming that the group's acting Interior Minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, had traveled to Helmand province. In the video, Haqqani can be seen meeting his aides in a desert. His exact location has not been stated in the video.
The Taliban added that Haqqani will hold meetings in Helmand province.
After the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the al-Qaeda in Kabul, US authorities accused Sirajuddin Haqqani of sheltering Zawahiri in Kabul. Even after a week since the incident, Haqqani has not yet responded to the US’ stance.
However, Haqqani's absence from public life after the death of Zawahiri had been raising eyebrows. Reports had even emerged that the Taliban's interior minister had moved back to his hideout fearing a possible US drone strike.
The possibility of a US strike on the leaders of the Haqqani network is plausible with the $10 million bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani's head still standing.
Haqqani, the 42-year-old interior minister of the Taliban and the leader of the Haqqani network, is not the only terrorist in the Haqqani family that the United States has set a reward for information leading to their arrest.
The United States has put a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Khalil ur Rahman Haqqani, Sirajuddin's uncle, who is the minister of refugee affairs in the Taliban cabinet, and Aziz Haqqani, Sirajuddin's younger brother.
There is no cash reward for the arrest of Yahya Haqqani, a close aide and brother-in-law of Sirajuddin, but he was also designated as a global terrorist by the United States in 2014.
The Haqqanis are wanted for being involved in killings and organising a series of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since 2008.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is accused of planning the January 14, 2008, attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul. Six people, including an American citizen, had been killed in the attack. In March 2008, the US State Department designated Sirajuddin Haqqani as a global terrorist.
In February 2008, Khalil Haqqani was also named a wanted terrorist by the US law enforcement and security agencies. Among other terrorist activities, Khalil Haqqani is accused of providing weapons and financial resources to al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.
After the Taliban's victory in Kabul, Haqqani traveled to Kandahar and admitted that around 1,050 members of the Taliban's Haqqani network, had waged suicide attacks in the past decade and a half in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are accused of mass killings of civilians in the cities and villages of Afghanistan since 1994 when the group emerged for the first time in Kandahar province.
The Taliban held anti-US demonstrations across Afghanistan on August 5. Anas Haqqani, a Taliban leader, published pictures of the demonstrations depicting dozens of the group’s supporters with anti-US and anti-Pakistan slogans.
The demonstrators called Pakistan a partner of the US in the attack on Kabul and chanted slogans like ‘Death to ISI’, among others.
The Taliban considered the US drone strike on the al-Qaeda leader’s safe house in Kabul a violation of Afghanistan's sovereignty and condemned it.
Anas Haqqani, the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is said to have owned the house in which al-Zawahiri was killed, said in a tweet on Friday that the US violated the Doha agreement. According to Haqqani, "America once again violated the UN Charter and the Doha Agreement by attacking our territory with drones."
He said that the US strike was "disrespectful" for a peaceful world and Afghans will not tolerate violations of their national sovereignty.
The Taliban had urged Afghans to participate in the anti-American demonstration after Friday prayers.
Sources told Afghanistan International that before the demonstrations the Taliban had asked journalists to cover speeches of imams during the Friday prayers.
According to these sources, the information and culture departments of the Taliban in the provinces had identified a list of mosques for journalists and ordered them to cover the demonstrations as well as the speeches of the imams of the mosques.
A source told Afghanistan International that Taliban officials had asked government employees to participate in the anti-US demonstrations.
Five days after Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone attack, the Taliban said that they were unaware of the al-Qaeda leader's entry and presence in Kabul. The Taliban announced an investigation into the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri on Thursday.
US President Joe Biden recently confirmed that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in Kabul.
On July 30, the Taliban said that a rocket hit a residential house in Sherpur area, Kabul, and that the attack did not cause any casualties. The group then said that the attack was carried out by the United States.
Lindsey Graham, a US Republican senator, has urged the United States government to quickly adjust its policies to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks. Graham wrote on his Twitter account, "A terrorist safe haven in Afghanistan is a formula for disaster.”
According to him, radical Islamic presence is growing in Afghanistan.
Graham quoted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray as saying that al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups very much desire to hit the American homeland.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, was targeted and killed in a US drone attack on the balcony of a safe house in the heart of Kabul on Sunday.
His death has been welcomed by American politicians and the international community, but the concerns about al-Qaeda's terrorist activities in the country remains.
The US government has cautioned US citizens of possible retaliatory attacks by the al-Qaeda. The US State Department said on Tuesday that al-Qaeda may launch retaliatory attacks against US citizens after the death of their leader.
The ministry urged American citizens to be cautious when traveling to other countries.
The US State Department believes that "due to Ayman al-Zawahiri's death, there is more capacity for anti-American violence”.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting minister of interior of the Taliban, has not been seen in public since the killing of the al-Qaeda leader in Kabul on Sunday. Haqqani has also not responded to claims that al-Zawahiri was living under his protection in Kabul.
Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency, has claimed that several leaders of the Haqqani network, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, have left Kabul for their hideouts in southwestern Afghanistan after al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike.
He told Voice of America (VoA) that Sirajuddin Haqqani was last seen in a few short videos that the Taliban's Interior Ministry tweeted on August 1. In these videos, Haqqani is seen greeting and talking with people in the rural areas of Paktia Province.
Nabil said, "After the attack on al-Zawahiri, Sirajuddin Haqqani has left for Paktia province and everyone, including his closest aides, have gone into hiding. They were not seen in the Ministry of Interior in Kabul."
The Taliban said on Thursday that they did not know about al- Zawahiri's presence in the heart of Kabul, which was located less than one kilometer away from the Taliban's General Directorate of Intelligence. However, the US authorities contradict the group’s claims.
In response to the question of whether the Taliban knew about al-Zawahiri's presence in Kabul, US National Security Council’s spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that "senior members of the Haqqani network knew”.
Bounty of $10 million on his head
Haqqani, the 42-year-old interior minister of the Taliban and the leader of the Haqqani network with a $10 million bounty on his head, is not the only terrorist of the Haqqani family that the United States has set a reward for information leading to their arrest.
The United States has put a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Khalil ur Rahman Haqqani, Sirajuddin's uncle, who is the minister of refugee affairs in the Taliban cabinet, and Aziz Haqqani, Sirajuddin's younger brother.
There is no cash reward for the arrest of Yahya Haqqani, a close aide and brother-in-law of Sirajuddin, but he was also designated as a global terrorist by the United States in 2014.
The Haqqanis are wanted for being involved in killings and organising a series of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since 2008.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is accused of planning the January 14, 2008, attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul. Six people, including an American citizen, had been killed in the attack. In March 2008, the US State Department designated Sirajuddin Haqqani as a global terrorist.
In February 2008, Khalil Haqqani was also named a wanted terrorist by the US law enforcement and security agencies. Among other terrorist activities, Khalil Haqqani is accused of providing weapons and financial resources to al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.
The Haqqanis had lived so secretly that no photos of Sirajuddin had been published until a few months after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021. Sirajuddin and Khalil Haqqani boast of the victory against the US and claim themselves as the liberating forces of Kabul.