Report: Haqqani use mafia-style financing

ISLAMABAD -- One of the deadliest militant groups in Afghanistan, the Haqqani network, has developed a sophisticated, "mafia"-style financing operation that relies on extortion, kidnapping, smuggling and ties to legitimate businesses, according to a new report by a U.S.-based think tank.

The report by the Combating Terrorism Center in West Point suggests the system has become so lucrative that maintaining it could be as much of a goal for the group as driving foreign forces out of Afghanistan. That could complicate U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the war, since much of the network's cash flow is dependent on instability and lawlessness bred by the conflict.

"Life at war has become lucrative -- even if highly risky -- while an end to the fighting would almost certainly produce a decline in wealth and power," said the report, which was released Tuesday and was based on archival records, documents captured in Afghanistan and interviews with Western, Afghan and Pakistani officials, as well as residents of areas where the Haqqani network operates.

The United States has identified the Haqqani network, allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban, as one of its most potent enemies in Afghanistan, partly because of its record of carrying out high-profile attacks on the capital, Kabul. The group's leaders are based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, having fled there from their homeland in eastern Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and relocation to Pakistan, the group continued its outreach to Arab donors, with senior leaders making regular trips to the Gulf. It also deepened involvement in illegal activities by broadening the types of businesses it extorted and kidnapping local businessmen and their relatives, said the report.

"Local sources . . . say it is virtually impossible to conduct business in Haqqani areas of operations unless the network approves and profits off that business in some way," said the report.