On Tuesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” network national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s claim Iran is funding the Taliban’s Haqqani network was “baffling.”
At his press conference, Pompeo said, “In Afghanistan, there is an aspect that deserves more attention, and that is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s involvement there. Iran has refused to join the regional and international consensus for peace, and is, in fact, today actively working to undermine the peace process by continuing it’s a long global effort to support militant groups there. Most people know about Iran’s proxy networks in the Arab world, but the regime also has a relationship with the Taliban and related groups such as the Haqqanis, the Tora Bora and the Mullah Dadullah group. The Taliban’s entanglement in Iran’s dirty work will only harm the Afghanistan peace process.”
Reporting on the press conference, Griffin said, “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is under continued pressure to prove there was significant justification to order the killing of Qasem Soleimani. In his press briefing moments ago, he did in providing new evidence that a strike on U.S. forces was imminent but talked about Iran’s involvement in Afghanistan and its support for the Taliban’s Haqqani network. Which is baffling and an exaggeration at best given that Pakistan is well known to be the main force backing the Haqqani network.”
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