KABUL - Afghan forces arrested the son of the feared Haqqani network's founder along with a militant commander in charge of suicide attacks, Afghanistan's intelligence service said Thursday. The Haqqani network, the Taliban-linked Islamist group which mainly operates out of Pakistan's border areas, has been blamed for some of the deadliest and most sophisticated attacks on NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan, including assaults on hotels popular with foreigners in Kabul and a 2011 attack on the U.S. embassy.
The National Directorate for Security did not go into details of the arrests, which it said occurred on Tuesday. It said Anas Haqqani was in charge of raising funds and recruitment through social media. Anas Haqqani is the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the former anti-Soviet guerrilla commander who founded the network, which also has ties to al Qaeda. Anas Haqqani was also a special adviser to his brother, Sarajuddin Haqqani, the network's leader, the NDS said. The NDS said that the Haqqani network commander for southeastern Afghanistan, Hafiz Rashid, also was arrested Tuesday. It said Rashid was in charge of selecting targets and providing equipment for suicide bombers in Kabul and the eastern province of Khost.
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