| Haissam Haqqani | |
|---|---|
| |
| Status: | Deceased |
| Cause of death: | Execution by firing squad |
| Nationality: |  Pakistani
|
| Profession: | Taliban leader |
| Father: | Bunran Latif |
| Sibling(s): | Tasneem Qureshi (sister) |
| Children: | Jalal Haqqani (son) |
| Played by: | Numan Acar |
| Season(s): | 4, 8 |
| First episode: | "Iron in the Fire" |
| Last episode: | "Threnody(s)" |
Played by Numan Acar, Haissam Haqqani is a Taliban commander, and later the organization's leader.
Contents
Biography
Haissam Haqqani was a former high priority target and Taliban leader. He served as the main antagonist of the fourth season. The mastermind of an attack on the American Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan that killed 36 Americans, Haqqani is now the head of the Taliban. If Saul wants an Afghan peace deal, the only way forward is through this dangerous rival.
Season 4
Haqqani is introduced as a high-value CIA target whose compound in Kabul is destroyed by a drone strike ordered by Carrie. However, Carrie later learns that Haqqani was not present at the blast site and is instead in hiding, receiving deliveries of medicine from his nephew Aayan Ibrahim (who survived the blast). Carrie leads Aayan into a meeting with Haqqani in the mountains, but Haqqani emerges with a captured Saul, aware that the CIA has drones overhead ready to assassinate him. He executes Aayan for leading him into a trap. Over the next several days, Haqqani uses Saul as a human shield to travel through Pakistan freely, reuniting with his family after years and reestablishing his public notoriety in the area. Haqqani uses Saul as a bargaining chip to negotiate the release of several Taliban prisoners in U.S. custody. He then brings a troupe of armed Taliban soldiers to storm the U.S. embassy in search of a package containing classified intelligence on the CIA's network in the area. Haqqani and his men slaughter several CIA personnel before retrieving the package and escaping. The attack bolsters Haqqani's presence in the region and allows him to rise the ranks of the Taliban. He covertly makes a deal with Dar Adal, agreeing not to harbor terrorists in Afghanistan, in exchange for being removed from the CIA's kill list.
Season 8
Years later, Haqqani grows weary of war and becomes interested in negotiating peace in the region. Saul capitalizes on the opportunity, arranging a meeting with Haqqani to broker a peace agreement. The meeting is ambushed by the ISI; Haqqani survives and learns that his eldest son Jalal betrayed him to the ISI over his opposition to peace talks. Haqqani stops short of killing his son and instead exiles him from the family, unaware that Jalal was later picked up by Tasneem. After a helicopter carrying U.S. President Warner and Afghan President Daoud crashes in the mountains, killing both world leaders, Afghanistan's new president, General Abdul Qadir G'ulom, publicly blames Haqqani for the attack and orders his arrest. Haqqani turns himself in to the U.S., hoping for a fair trial, but is swiftly sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad.
About Him
Haqqani fought in the Soviet-Afghan War and was a long-time client of Pakistan's ISI. The hunt for Haqqani consumed a good deal of Carrie Mathison's time when she served as station chief in Islamabad, and was responsible for the death of one of her assets (his own nephew) and for the terrorist attack on the US embassy.
Saul is now Haqqani’s prisoner — he was kidnapped by the henchmen who survived the ISI attack on their convoy — and Haqqani is suspicious that Saul tipped the Pakistani government off to their meeting. Saul sits on the grimy floor of Haqqani’s home jail cell. Haqqani must be unsettled, too, because he starts to consider Saul’s suggestion that someone inside his own cell tipped off the ISI about the meeting.
Hiding out in Kabul, he meets with his son Jalal and admits that he wants peace in Afghanistan.
Now that Jalal has been dumped out onto the street, the two men get down to business. Saul’s requirement for a peace deal is that the Taliban start de-commissioning their weapons. In return, he’ll offer amnesty for the fighters, guaranteed positions in the new government, and the power of political legitimacy. He promises Haqqani that his wealth and influence will expand. And Haqqani agrees — because he gets more wealth and influence! — and the two declare a cease-fire.
Saul then makes his way to the Kabul CIA station to speak with the president, alongside Carrie about the Doha framework and said cease-fire.
He later turns himself over to Abdul Qadir G'ulom, who puts him on trial and switches judges so that he is found guilty and sentenced to death for his crimes. Although initially given a stay of execution, Abdul Qadir G'ulom went back on his word and ordered his men to shoot him dead.
Fitting Ending
Despite desperately trying to make amends in this series’s last season, former leader of the Taliban Haqqani was met with an unfortunate and spectacular ending. Though he was not responsible for the downing of the president’s helicopters in “Chalk Two Down", Haqqani spent his last days accepting a fate he had for a long time seen coming. Haqqani’s death was a fitting ending, as, in hindsight, it was also a form of reckoning for the crimes and murders he committed in the “13 Hours in Islamabad." (And From A to B and Back Again.)
Quotes
Haissam Haqqani: We are just strong enough never to lose and just weak enough never to win.
Trivia
The Haqqani Network is real.
The Haqqani Network is a Sunni Islamist militant organization founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who emerged as a top Afghan warlord and insurgent commander during the anti-Soviet war; he was a member of the Hezb-e Islami faction led by renowned mujahedin commander Younis Khalis. Jalaluddin later allied with the Afghan Taliban as that group’s Minister of Tribal and Border Affairs when the Taliban held power in Afghanistan during the mid-to-late 1990s. He was a known associate of Usama Bin Ladin and was recognized as one of Bin Ladin’s closest mentors during the al-Qa‘ida founder’s formative years in the 1980s Afghan war. Sirajuddin Haqqani, Jalaluddin’s son, currently leads the day-to-day activities of the group, along with several of his closest relatives. Sirajuddin in August 2015 was named as a deputy to newly appointed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansur—cementing the alliance between the Haqqanis and the Taliban.
The Haqqani Network is primarily based in North Waziristan, Pakistan, and conducts cross-border operations into eastern Afghanistan and Kabul. The group is primarily composed of members of the Zadran tribe. The Haqqanis are considered the most lethal and sophisticated insurgent group targeting US, Coalition, and Afghan forces in Afghanistan; they typically conduct coordinated small-arms assaults coupled with rocket attacks, IEDs, suicide attacks, and attacks using bomb-laden vehicles.
The Haqqani Network is responsible for some of the highest-profile attacks of the Afghan war, including the June 2011 assault on the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, conducted jointly with the Afghan Taliban, and two major suicide bombings—in 2008 and 2009—against the Indian Embassy in Kabul. In September 2011, the Haqqanis participated in a day-long assault against major targets in Kabul, including the US Embassy, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters, the Afghan Presidential Palace, and the Afghan National Directorate of Security headquarters. More recently, in October 2013, Afghan security forces intercepted a truck bomb deployed by the Haqqanis against Forward Operating Base Goode in Paktiya Province. The device, which did not detonate, contained some 61,500 pounds of explosives and was the largest truck bomb ever built. The group is also involved in a number of criminal activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including extortion, kidnapping for ransom, and smuggling.
The US Government in 2012 designated the Haqqani Network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization because of its involvement in the Afghan insurgency, attacks on US military and civilian personnel and Western interests in Afghanistan, and because of its ties to the Taliban and al-Qa‘ida. In addition to designating the group, key members have also been individually designated. Haqqani leaders Saidullah Jan, Yahya Haqqani, and Muhammad Omar Zadran, as well as suicide operations chief Qari Abdul Ra‘uf (also known as Qari Zakir), and Ibrahim Haqqani, remain either designated for financial sanctions or are on US most-wanted lists.
Appearances
| Season 4 | ||||
| "The Drone Queen" | "Trylon and Perisphere" | "Shalwar Kameez" | Iron in the Fire | "About a Boy" |
| From A to B and Back Again | Redux | Halfway to a Donut | There's Something Else Going On | 13 Hours in Islamabad |
| Krieg Nicht Lieb | "Long Time Coming" | |||
| Season 8 | ||||
| "Deception Indicated" | Catch and Release | False Friends | "Chalk One Up" | Chalk Two Down |
| Two Minutes | F**ker Shot Me | Threnody(s) | "In Full Flight" | "Designated Driver" |
| "The English Teacher" | "Prisoners of War" | |||
