Well-placed Taliban sources have firmly denied reports suggesting
These Kabul-based sources said that Pakistani intelligence agencies and their various arms, including media outlets based in Western countries, have been spreading this rumor about internal divisions within the Taliban.
“The reports you’re seeing about the Interior Minister are completely untrue. It’s the same old game – spreading false narratives about the leadership,” sources told this newspaper on Monday morning.
Sources pointed to the fact that Haqqani had made a public appearance just last week in Khost, further underscoring the falsity of the claims.
Sirajuddin Haqqani heads the powerful Haqqani network, a significant and influential faction within the Taliban movement.
“It’s not just the usual suspects,” referring to certain Pakistan based media outlets, sources explained while claiming that these rumors are being amplified by Western commentators on social media, indicating that the misinformation campaign extends beyond the region.
News websites operating out of the US, UK, and Europe are also contributing to the spread of these unsubstantiated reports, the source claimed.
Taliban insiders suggest that Pakistani agencies and their allies in Western countries are actively pushing the narrative that tensions between Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the Haqqani network have been escalating in recent months, in a bid to portray internal discord within the Taliban.
These reports are, according to the sources, part of a deliberate attempt to sow confusion, weaken unity within the Taliban, and, most importantly, undermine investor confidence in Afghanistan’s stability. “Their intention is to create doubts in the minds of potential investors and stop them from coming to Afghanistan,” the source asserted.
India is among the few countries that Kabul is comfortable with and hopes to encourage investment from, particularly as the country navigates its post-Taliban reconstruction phase.
The alleged misinformation campaign, according to the Taliban sources, is also being used as a smokescreen to distract from other pressing issues that Pakistan is facing . “Certain intelligence circles are at play here and they’re trying to deflect attention from their own failures by spreading these false narratives.”