The Haqqani Network: Terrorists or Insurgents

The definition of terrorism is broad and open to interpretation. Hoffman, in his book Inside Terrorism, suggests that terrorism is “the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change.” Schwartz, Dunkel, et al, define terrorism in their Studies in Conflict & Terrorism article entitled Terrorism: An Identity Theory Perspective, as “the deliberate targeting of civilian sites for attacks designed to result in destruction of those sites and/or the injury and death of noncombatant civilians.” Together, these two perspectives coupled with identity theory and will serve as the basis for an evaluation of the Haqqani network and their interrelationships and interactions with known terrorist groups such as the Taliban and al-Qa’ida as well as with Pakistan’s military and government intelligence agencies.
The Haqqani Network: Who Are They and Why do We Care? The Haqqani network is an Afghan and Pakistani group of fighters that operates primarily in southeastern Afghanistan as a semi-autonomous component of the Taliban with close ties to Pakistan’s Army and intelligence agencies (Rassler et al. July 14, 2011, p. 1-2). The Haqqani network’s leadership structure is hierarchical in nature with members of the patriarch’s family filling top leadership roles (Rassler et al. July 14, 2011, p. 7). This familial structure is an important cultural identity marker “that can serve to promote terrorist activities.” Furthermore, Schwartz, Dunkel, et al address the family as it relates to upholding honor and “avenging wrongs done to the family.” This is interesting because even those who sympathize and support terrorism, but don’t actually participate in it, often share the same level of social identity based upon their group affiliations. This tends to show how the Haqqani network is able to exert its influence over their colleague groups without actually having to be in control of them. It appears

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