The father of the Taliban killed in Pakistan

The Maulana Sami ul-Haq, of Muslim spirit, often renamed "father of the Taliban", was killed Friday in Pakistan. A family member told the Reuters news agency that an unknown attacker entered his home in Islamabad, the capital, and attacked Haq with a knife.

Haq, 81, was taken to the hospital where he died. According to his nephew, he allegedly had stab wounds and gunshot wounds. It is unclear why Haq's bodyguard and driver were not present during the attack to protect him. Pakistani President Imran Khan condemned the killing: "Today we have lost a great scholar and religious leader." This scholar was a political ally of Khan.

Haq was a well-known Islamic scholar who for decades headed a madrassa, an Islamic school, in northwestern Pakistan. He has regularly served as an intermediary to the Afghan government and the Taliban, who have been fighting for power in this mountainous country since the 2001 US invasion.

NRC interviewed Haq in Pakistan in 2001: "Of course, I'm proud of the Taliban"

Mullah Omar's teacher

One of Haq's students was Mullah Mohammad Omar in the eighties. Omar went to Afghanistan with classmates to fight the occupation of the Soviet Union. These mujahideen, Islamic fighters, eventually formed the Taliban, according to the Arabic word meaning "student" (Talib) because it was about students in religion. After years of civil war, the ultra-conservative Taliban finally succeeded in taking power in Afghanistan in 1996.

Meanwhile, Haq continued to teach in Pakistan. In an interview with NRC the clergy said in 2001 that he was "proud" of what the Taliban had accomplished in Afghanistan. "They brought peace, stability and security."

A Taliban spokesman told Reuters that "the Afghan people will never forget what he did for them" and calls the person responsible for his death "the enemies of the" Islam". After the murder, hundreds of people took to the streets of Mardan, a city near the Haq madrassa

. Read also: The School for Extremists of the Madrassa