* Lawmakers say network behind attacks on U.S. interests
* State Dept. reviewing possible ‘terrorist’ designation
WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) – The leaders of U.S.
congressional intelligence committees, who recently returned
from a trip to Afghanistan, urged Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton on Friday to immediately designate the militant Haqqani
network as a “terrorist” group.
U.S. officials blame the al Qaeda-linked network for attacks
in Afghanistan including assaults on embassies and the
parliament in Kabul. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Mike Mullen, called the Haqqani group a “veritable arm”
of Pakistan’s intelligence service.
The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate and House of
Representatives intelligence committees, in a letter to Clinton,
said their trip to Afghanistan last week reaffirmed concerns
about the network.
“It was clear that the Haqqani Network continues to launch
sensational and indiscriminate attacks against U.S. interests in
Afghanistan and the group poses a continuing threat to innocent
men, women, and children in the region,” the letter said.
In the six months since the State Department said in
November it was engaged in a final review, “the Haqqanis have
continued to attack U.S. troops and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,”
the lawmakers wrote.
The letter said the administration may have been reluctant
to designate the network as a “terrorist” group while trying to
negotiate a reconciliation agreement with the Taliban. But U.S.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker told the lawmakers last week there have
been no such talks since late last year and Afghan President
Hamid Karzai has opposed their continuation.
The letter, signed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Saxby
Chambliss and Representatives Mike Rogers and C.A. “Dutch”
Ruppersberger, said there was no reason not to move forward on
the designation.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the
lawmakers’ letter had been received, and that the review of the
potential designation was still under way.
But she pointed out that many key Haqqani leaders had
already been targeted by individual designations, freezing any
U.S.-based assets they might have and barring any U.S. citizen
from transactions with them.
“As we continue our review we consider it absolutely
essential to designate individuals because that allows us to
pursue the assets of individuals rather than have to sort of try
to divine who might be covered by a blanket designation,” Nuland
said.
(Reporting By Tabassum Zakaria; additional reporting by Andrew
Quinn; Editing by Jim Loney)
