Taliban Appoint Suspected Terror Leader Behind 2020 Disappearance of American Hostage as Interim Interior Minister
The Taliban announced Tuesday that Sirajuddin Haqqani, who appears on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists for his role in leading an eponymous terror network, would serve as the country’s interim interior minister.
Haqqani’s Taliban-aligned group, the Haqqani network, is the same one suspected of playing a role in the January 2020 disappearance of Mark Frerichs, an American civil engineer working in the country as a contractor. Former President Donald Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban the subsequent month without locating Frerichs, to the chagrin of critics, including Frerichs’ sister, Charlene Cakora.
“Each morning when we wake up, we fear that we will hear the news that the president has announced that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is over without first using the awesome power of his office to get Mark home as part of that deal,” Cakora wrote in a New York Times op-ed at the time.
Haqqani’s appointment as interior minister means he’ll oversee law enforcement in the country. As of Tuesday, the FBI ‘s most-wanted bulletin for Haqqani advised the bureau was still offering $10 million for “information leading directly” to his arrest, noting he was also a suspect in crimes that included a 2008 assassination attempt on former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as well as an attack on a Kabul hotel resulting in the deaths of six people, including one American.
Some national security experts have suggested the move presents complications for the Biden administration, which, as recently as last week, has expressed openness to sending economic aid to assist the new Taliban government if certain conditions are met.
“The Biden administration must take immediate action if it wants to salvage any credibility,” Seth Jones, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., wrote in a Wednesday column for The Wall Street Journal. “The U.S. should coordinate with its international partners and allies to denounce the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani, refuse to recognize the new Taliban government, and prohibit aid to the Taliban from the U.S. or international financial organizations.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Fox News last week that officials remained cognizant of Frerichs’ disappearance, and that they were “laser-focused” on bringing him home.
