Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interior minister, and leader of the Haqqani Network have been put in charge of moving Pakistani naqil migrants, including Tahriki Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters, along the banks of the Qushteppa Canal.
In the photo: the Taliban expelled about 100 families from their homes in the Khoja Bahauddin district (Takhar province) and instead settled Pakistani Pashtun naqils.
MAZARI-SHARIF, June 10 - Sangar, Qari Ahmad. America, Pakistan, and Qatar entrusted this task to him. The US has long placed a $10 million bounty on the head of Sirajuddin Haqqani.
A source in the Taliban leadership in Balkh told Sanger that when Haqqani traveled to Balkh, he was accompanied by US, Pakistani, and Qatari intelligence officials.
“There were six Qatari citizens and three US citizens with him. The number of Pakistanis was five or six people. They were present at a meeting with commanders of the Haqqani network, who were mostly non-Pashtun Taliban – Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmens,” the source said.
At that meeting, Sirajuddin Haqqani distributed about 500 million Afghanis (equivalent to $4.3 million) to northern Taliban commanders to support the Pakistani naqil resettlement project.
“Besides money, Haqqani also promised non-Pashtun commanders 100 jaribs (20 hectares) of land and 10 houses each. They were only asked to crack down on anyone who protests against the project of placing Pakistani Pashtun naqils in the North,” the source said.
He says that some non-Pashtun Taliban commanders, while not publicly stating, are discussing among themselves that they can be used in this work and eventually removed from the scene.
“This may be operational work because it is possible that the very promised lands and houses will not be received at all. After the naqils are placed, it will be easy to eliminate commanders, ” the source said.
The issue of the transfer of Pakistani Pashtuns to northern Afghanistan escalated after the statement of Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, who said that an agreement had been reached with Pakistani Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to transfer Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan fighters to remote provinces of Afghanistan to eliminate fears of Islamabad.
Although the Taliban spokesman did not make it clear where they would move, experts and the media began to emphasize that they would be moved north, primarily to the lands around the new Qushteppa Canal in Balkh, Juzjan, and Faryab provinces.
Meanwhile, Sirajuddin Haqqani's trip to Balkh has shed some light on the existence of this Taliban program. According to Sangar's Taliban sources, about a million Pashtun families, mostly from the Pakistan province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are to be resettled in the lands around Qushteppa.
IN THE PHOTO: Sirajuddin Haqqani's visit to Dashte Laili, the site where hundreds of Pashtun Taliban were killed by Abdul Rashid Dostum forces and buried in mass graves.
A Sangar source, one of the prominent Taliban in the north, said that Sirajuddin Haqqani was allocated $500 million just for the main works and the preparatory phase of this project, and about another $5 billion was promised for the movement of Pakistani naqils, the construction of villages and other agricultural infrastructure.
“Settlements with a modern architectural style are supposed to be built on both sides of the canal. In addition to the naqils, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militants, families of intelligence officers, military intelligence, and other Pakistani services will also be moved to these settlements. They will help Sirajuddin Haqqani to implement the project,” the source said.
According to him, after the completion of this project, Pakistani intelligence, in cooperation with the United States, Great Britain, and Qatar, will implement plans, first of all, to develop and transport the region's natural resources in order to remove them from the control of Russia and China.
“From here it is possible to control the transfer of the natural resources of Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caspian basin to South Asia and China, and at the same time launch programs to spread terrorism and extremism to the northern countries. A joint group of these countries is now in Bagram airport and is dealing with the affairs of both Iran and Central Asia,” the source said.
He added that it is planned to create a “state within a state” in this territory, where both terrorism and drug cultivation will systematically grow, and that is why there is so much effort and haste in the construction of the Qushteppa canal.
“It will be a special territory, the founders of which will have huge money from drug trafficking, profits from oil and gas deals, and a strong army of terrorist residents,” the source said.
According to him, personal documents - passports and birth certificates, documents for land and real estate, for example, how much land and how many houses they should receive, will be prepared for all naqils.
“Even henceforth it is known what the region and its settlements will be called. All names will be in Pashtun, and the names of northern Afghanistan, especially in the Uzbek and Turkmen regions, will be completely Pashtunized," the source said.
The interlocutor of "Sangar" says that this program was planned before the Taliban came to power in Kabul, after which all extremist and terrorist forces moved from Pakistan to Afghanistan, where everyone received their identity cards and even the houses left by the fugitives.
“Foreign terrorists, primarily citizens of China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, with the same false documents were transferred to military units near the Amu Darya. If you tell any of them that you are a foreigner, he will take out a passport and say that he is from Afghanistan. When you ask what part of Afghanistan you are from, he will tell you that he is from Herat, Kunar, Paktia, or… They have been living in Afghanistan for a long time and know it's every corner like five fingers,” the source said.
At the same time, it is not known to what extent the initiators and investors of the project for the transfer of Pashtun naqils from Pakistan and the Pashtunization of northern Afghanistan will be able to achieve their goals.
According to another Sangar source, Yusuf Wafa (in the photo), the Taliban governor in Balkh, in a special meeting with Sirajuddin Haqqani spoke out against his plans and asked him to stop the transfer of the Pakistani tribe of Wazir members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan to Afghanistan, but Haqqani angrily rejected him and sped up the process.
“Taliban leaders recently killed in Badakhshan were opposed to the transfer of TTP fighters and families north and into Badakhshan. These attacks are a cleansing of opponents of the TTP and opponents of the scenario of transforming Afghanistan into Northern Afghanistan,” the source said.
The project of resettlement of naqils - Pashtun settlers - was launched by the government of Amanullah Khan a hundred years ago, according to which the Pashtuns of India and southern Afghanistan were resettled to Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek lands in northern Afghanistan. Despite the opposition of the indigenous peoples, this project continued to be implemented in stages until the time of the Karzai-Ghani governments. The Taliban, like their Pashtun predecessors, are persistently pushing it, especially since the US, Qatar, and Pakistan have also benefited from it. They don't even mind putting this project in the hands of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the man on whose head the US promised $10 million.
