The Taliban’s acting minister of refugees and repatriation, Khalil Haqqani, has been killed in a bombing in Kabul on Wednesday, according to media reports.
Haqqani, a senior member of the powerful Haqqani network and uncle of the Taliban’s interior minister and senior leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, was handling the refugee crisis in Afghanistan.
Local media reports suggested that he died inside the ministry after a powerful explosion ripped through the premises on Wednesday.
The casualties from the explosion are not immediately clear. The Taliban leadership has not confirmed the death of Haqqani in a statement.
However, unnamed Interior Ministry officials confirmed that a blast inside the ministry killed Haqqani. He is the most high-profile casualty of a bombing in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in the country in August 2021.
The haqqani network is a Taliban-affiliated group of militants that operates from the Pakistan and Afghanistan region and has close ties to the Taliban leadership in Kabul, with many in ministerial roles in the country after Nato withdrawal. The Haqqani network is also close to the al-Qaeda leadership after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.
According to the US rewards for justice, Haqqani carried a bounty reward of $5m for being part of the US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation. He was accused of fundraising on behalf of the Taliban and providing support to the Taliban operating in Afghanistan after 2001.
The US designated Haqqani as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2011.
Last month, Haqqani had condemned neighbouring countries for mistreating Afghanistan refugees and urged them to not expel Afghans seeking refuge outside of the Taliban-led country.
He also issued a plea for fleeing Afghans to return to the country under the Taliban, claiming that their hardline Islamic rule of Sharia was used to govern them and that “security is established”.
