TEHRAN, November 02 -Unknown assailants have killed Sami ul-Haq, a cleric known as the "Father of the Taliban", in a Pakistani city.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - On Friday, unknown attackers killed Haq, who taught some of the commanders of Afghanistan’s Taliban militant group, his deputy Yousaf Shah said.
The exact cause of his killing was not immediately clear amid conflicting reports of why his bodyguard and driver were apparently not present to defend him at the time of the assault.
Meanwhile, Haq’s relative said his uncle was found with stab and gunshot wounds in his house in an upscale area on Islamabad's outskirts.
"When the assailants entered his house... they first started hitting Mullah Sami ul-Haq with knives and daggers and then shot him dead," said Haq’s nephew Mohammad Bilal.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the founder of Taliban which seized power in Afghanistan in 1996, was one of Haq’s students from the 1980s.
Haq's Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in the Pakistani province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has continued to thrive in Pakistan, including being allocated funding in provincial government budgets.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry confirmed Haq's death and expressed condolences. A military spokesman also denounced the "assassination" and expressed "grief and condolences" to his family.
The cleric was seen as a possible mediator in negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
"Recently, when the Afghan government sent him a delegation and sought his help in bringing the Afghan Taliban to the negotiation table, he offered them... his madrassa (seminary) to sit with each other and build trust," a member of Haq's family said.
Taliban’s five-year rule over at least three quarters of Afghanistan came to an end following the US invasion in October 2001, but 17 years on, Washington seeks truce with the militants as it prepares for a long haul in the country.
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