Carnage at the 'University of Jihad', Taliban leader killed
The Darul Uloom Haqqania madrasa was attacked today, eve of Ramadan, in a town some 60 kilometres from Peshawar. The target of the attack was its leader, Hamid ul Haq Haqqani, a key figure in the ongoing dialogue between Pakistani Islamists and the current Afghan government. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province is probably behind the attack.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) – An important Pakistani Taliban religious leader and five other people were killed today in a suicide bombing during Friday prayers at the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, some 60 kilometres from Peshawar in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The attack is particularly significant both for the target – an Islamic centre dubbed the "University of Jihad" – and for the day it took place – the eve of the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
The cleric who was killed, Hamid ul Haq Haqqani, was in all probability the target of the attack; he headed the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) faction and the madrasa in Akora Khattak, a city located in Nowshera district.
Born in 1968, Hamid ul Haq Haqqani had become head of the group after the death of his father Maulana Sami ul Haq, considered in Pakistan to be the "father of the Taliban". At least 20 other people were also injured in the attack.
The Darul Uloom Haqqania madrasa is a leading force in the Deobandi school of Sunni Islam and is attended by about 4,000 students. It was founded in 1947 by Maulana Abdul Haq along the lines of the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary in India, where he taught.
Most Taliban leaders are among his former students, including Akhtar Mansour, Mullah Omar's successor at the helm of the Afghan Taliban, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the current Home Affairs minister of the Afghan government.
The Nowshera madrasa has been accused of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
Hamid ul Haq Haqqani also served as member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from November 2002 to 2007 and had been appointed JUI president after his father’s assassination in 2018.
Last year, he led a delegation of Pakistani clerics to Afghanistan where he met with Taliban leaders in an effort at “religious diplomacy”.
Speaking about the visit, Hamid told the Pakistani newspaper The Dawn that it could help remove mistrust between Islamabad and Kabul.
For some time, Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, in particular the Haqqani clan, has been involved in an intra-Islamist war involving the Islamic State-Khorasan Province.
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