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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she had sent a report to Congress saying the network met the criteria as a terror group.
She said the US would continue "diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure on the network".
The US has long described the Haqqani group as a major threat.
The network - which has links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban - has carried out a series of high-profile attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The designation will ban companies and individuals in the US from supporting the group and freeze any US assets it may have.
State department officials said the formal designation would be made in the coming days.
"Today, I have sent a report to Congress saying that the Haqqani network meets the statutory criteria of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO)," said Mrs Clinton, who is currently attending an Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) summit in Vladivostok, Russia.
"We also continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure on the network, demonstrating the United States's resolve to degrade the organisation's ability to execute violent attacks."
Mrs Clinton added that she was taking the action "in the context of our overall strategy in Afghanistan" following policy laid out by US President Barack Obama when he visited Afghanistan in May.
The Pentagon said the Haqqani network "represents a significant threat to US national security and we will continue our aggressive military action against this threat".
"These new group designations will build on our efforts to degrade the network's capacity to carry out attacks, including affecting fundraising abilities, targeting them with our military and intelligence resources, and pressing Pakistan to take action," said George Little, the acting Assistant Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs.
Hostage fears In response to the US move, senior commanders of the Haqqani network told Reuters news agency that the decision showed the US was not sincere about peace efforts in Afghanistan.
They also said the move would "bring hardship" for US army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, 25, who has been held prisoner for more than three years.
The Haqqanis also hold numerous Western, Pakistani and Afghan hostages as well as kidnap-for-ransom victims.
The US has been putting pressure on Pakistan to launch a ground offensive in North Waziristan, where the Haqqanis are based, but Pakistan is reluctant.
The BBC's Jill McGivering says that any such offensive would probably be focused on disrupting the Pakistani Taliban - an internal threat - and not on attacking the Haqqanis, whose battleground is Afghanistan.
The US fears that Islamabad sees the Haqqanis as potential allies after Nato's withdrawal from Afghanistan, she says.
Last year, US Admiral Mike Mullen, former head of the US military, said the Haqqani network had become a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Analysts say this prompted suggestions that a designation against the Haqqanis would indirectly be branding Pakistan a terrorist state.
In Washington, the White House has also been under political pressure from Congress to add the Haqqanis to the country's terrorist blacklist.
Congress had set Mrs Clinton a deadline of this weekend to deliver her report.
Meanwhile, the US has been disrupting the group, targeting leaders in drone attacks.
Last month, an air strike in North Waziristan was reported to have killed a key Haqqani commander, Badruddin Haqqani.
He had been described as a senior operational commander, masterminding and directing attacks on high-profile targets.
Correspondents say he was also responsible for training camps and for extorting funds from contractors.

More than 730 people were injured after the quakes hit Yunnan and Guizhou provinces on Friday, state media say.
The tremors struck mostly mountainous areas, causing landslides that blocked some roads.
The US Geological Survey registered the two strongest of the quakes at 5.6 magnitude.
Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to arrive in the area shortly.
Tents dispatched China's Xinhua news agency quoted officials in Yunnan as saying 6,650 houses had been destroyed in the province and 430,000 others damaged.
More than 100,000 people have already been evacuated, said Xinhua, and the Red Cross has sent 650 tents and 3,000 quilts to the region.
The authorities have deployed the army to assist rescue teams in the rough terrain.
"Roads are blocked and rescuers have to climb the mountains to reach hard-hit villages," Li Fuchun, head of Yunnan's Luozehe town, was quoted as saying.
Mobile and regular phone service in the area was experiencing disruption, according to reports.
Most of the deaths were in Yunnan's Yiliang county, said officials.
Television footage from state-run broadcaster CCTV showed hundreds of local residents gathering on streets littered with bricks and rocks.
Users of the Twitter-like wesbite Weibo reported people rushing out of shaking office buildings, and photos posted online also showed streets strewn with rubble.
Aid agencies said they were concerned about the plight of children in the two provinces following the quakes.
"We are especially worried about those who may have been separated from their parents, as more aftershocks are expected to hit the area," Save the Children in China Country Director Pia MacRae said.
The largest of the quakes was also felt in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, where a 7.8 magnitude quake in 2008 left tens of thousands dead.

Both men appeared in Iowa and New Hampshire on the first full day after the end of the party conventions.
Mr Obama conceded that the unemployment figures were "not good enough", while Mr Romney said the president's policies had failed.
The two men are neck-and-neck in the polls two months from election day.
Mr Obama's hope for a poll boost after the three-day Democratic convention, which finishing in North Carolina on Thursday night, faced a challenge from the latest set of weak economic data.
Friday's report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 96,000 jobs were added in August, fewer than expected. The unemployment rate fell from 8.3% to 8.1%, but only because more people gave up looking for work.
'He tried'
The two men spent Friday campaigning in the swing states of Iowa and New Hampshire, with the president in New Hampshire in the morning before holding an evening rally in Iowa.
Mr Romney did the reverse, making his first appearance of the day in Sioux City, Iowa, before ending his Friday in Nashua, New Hampshire.
"That's not good enough," Mr Obama told a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, talking about the jobs report. "We know it's not good enough.
"We need to create more jobs faster. We need to fill the hole left by this recession faster."
Mr Romney kept up his campaign's focus on lambasting the president's handling of the economy, pouncing on the jobs figures
"This president tried but he didn't understand what it takes to make our economy work. I do."
On financial news broadcaster CNBC, Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said: "This is not even close to what a recovery looks like."
Mr Obama is campaigning in the key swing states of New Hampshire and Iowa on Friday, joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife.
The Romney campaign released a glut of 15 anti-Obama ads on Friday as part of a reported $4.5m (£3m) broadcast campaign in eight swing states.
The ads - subtly tailored for each broadcast market - are scheduled to run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
Correspondents say the selection of eight states gives a clear signal about where the Romney campaign will direct its energy during the two-month campaign.
Eastwood's chair explanation In Mr Obama's Thursday night convention speech he offered a string of critiques of Republican policies, while emphasising there was no quick fix for the nation's problems.
"When you pick up that ballot to vote - you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation," he said.
"Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington: on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace - decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come."
Also on Friday, Clint Eastwood broke his silence about what inspired his bizarre speech at the Republican convention last week, when he spoke to an empty chair that he said represented Mr Obama.
He told his California hometown newspaper the Carmel Pine Cone that he noticed the seat while waiting backstage to speak.
"When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea," he said. "I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody."
Eastwood said the Romney campaign had asked for details of what he was going to say, but he told them: "You can't do that with me, because I don't know what I'm going to say."

The boy's classmates saw the gun in his bag and reported it to the school authorities, who alerted the police.
The weapon, which was reportedly loaded, was confiscated and police raided the boy's home.
There they found the weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The local authorities said they had found a powerful rifle (AR15) at the dining table and in one of the bedrooms, 13,000 rounds of ammunition, pistols and assault rifles, bulletproof vests and two money-counting machines.
Several high-calibre cartridges capable of penetrating body armour - so-called "cop-killers" - were also discovered.
In addition, the police confiscated military uniforms, portable radios and three vehicles, two of them armoured.
A police spokesman said a woman, thought to be the boy's mother, had been arrested at the house but that a man had managed to escape.
The boy was taken into the care of social workers.
This episode is further evidence of the damaging effects the country's violent drug war is having on young people, the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico reports.
Lobby groups have called on the authorities to do more to protect children from falling under the control of the powerful drug gangs, our correspondent says.
One local non-governmental organisation, he adds, has urged parents to routinely check their children's rucksacks for weapons, to help improve security in schools.

A number of children are among the dead. There were no reports of casualties among Isaf troops.
An attacker on a motorbike blew himself up near the entrance, an Isaf spokeswoman told Reuters news agency.
Kabul security has been tightened as supporters of an anti-Taliban warlord mark 11 years since his assassination.
Ahmad Shah Massoud - a hero of the 1980s war against Soviet occupiers, and later of opposition to the Taliban - was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers on 9 September 2001.
Following Saturday's explosion, the Isaf HQ at Camp Eggers, which is home to some 2,500 personnel, was placed "on lockdown", the Isaf spokeswoman said.
'Child hawkers' Afghan police confirmed a suicide bomber had struck.
Child street hawkers are believed to have been caught in the blast and witnesses quoted by Reuters said small bodies could be seen being carried to ambulances.
A police official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP news agency: "Most of the victims are young children who gather around Isaf to sell small items to soldiers leaving or getting into the base."
The US embassy, the Italian embassy and the presidential palace are also located near the site of the attack.
A Taliban spokesman named Zabihullah Mujahid said the militant group had carried out the attack, targeting US intelligence.
Scores of dignitaries are due to attend commemorations of Massoud's death in Kabul on Saturday, which is a national public holiday in his honour.

French prosecutor Eric Maillaud said British and French officers would enter the home of Iraq-born Saad al-Hilli, 50, in Claygate, Surrey.
Brother Zaid al-Hilli has denied a family dispute over money, which is one line of inquiry in the investigation.
Relatives of Mr al-Hilli's two young daughters, who survived Wednesday's attack, have arrived in France.
The girls, aged seven and four, are believed to be the only witnesses to the killings, carried out near the popular tourist destination of Lake Annecy, and are under police protection.
Three police officers from France are thought to have arrived in the UK already to investigate the shootings, and a fourth officer is due to arrive later.
The most senior of the four, Colonel Marc de Tarle, who heads the National Gendarmerie Criminal Affairs Bureau, was the first to arrive.
Mr Maillaud said French officers would interview Mr al-Hilli's brother in the UK as a "witness".
Franco-British inquiry Surrey Police said they were helping French authorities to carry out a "complex" investigation.
The BBC understands the family home was originally owned by Saad al-Hilli's parents and later left to him by his mother in her will.
Police plan to search the house as part of efforts to gather background information about Mr al-Hilli.
Mr Maillaud said: "Up until now the police in Britain were guaranteeing the safety of the house but now it's a Franco-British inquiry that is starting and we can now enter the house of Mr al-Hilli."
Mr al-Hilli's wife, Iqbal, and a woman thought to be his 74-year-old mother-in-law, were killed during the attack.
The fourth victim, a cyclist whose body was found near the car after apparently stumbling across the attack, has been named as 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier.
Mr Maillaud said four-year-old daughter Zeena al-Hilli - who spent eight hours hiding in the car with the bodies before being found by officers - had identified her family and described the "fury" and "terror" of the attack to French police.
The child said she was between her mother and the older woman - who have not yet been officially named - and hid under her mother's skirt when the shooting started.
The older sister, Zainab, is in a medically-induced coma in Grenoble University Hospital after being shot once and suffering head injuries.
She was found by a British cyclist who discovered the murder scene and alerted the authorities.
Vehicle sightings The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Annecy, said: "Prosecutors hope that if she recovers, she may provide the key to what happened here in this tranquil corner of France, and who is to blame."
Relatives of the girls arrived in France on Friday night, accompanied by a British social worker, and were due to meet Zeena later, Mr Maillaud said.
"I don't know when they will be able to see the little girl. We have to be sure it can be done without problems," he told AFP news agency.
During a press conference on Friday, the prosecutor confirmed that each of the victims had at least one bullet in the head, and about 25 shots were fired in total - more than originally thought.
This has led investigators to believe that more than one gun was used in the killings.
They are looking into reports of a green or dark-coloured four-wheel drive vehicle and a motorcycle, apparently seen by the cyclist who discovered the murder scene. But Mr Maillaud pointed out that such vehicles were common during the tourist season in a mountainous region.

She said the government was working closely with the US Congress to get the necessary legislation passed.
Mrs Clinton was speaking ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Vladivostok.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged a fight against protectionism to turn the global economy around.
And Chinese President Hu Jintao promised his country would try to help the world's economy by increasing the demand in China for imported goods.
'Bridges not walls' Although Russia is now a member of the World Trade Organisation, there is still a piece of legislation that prevents US companies trading normally with Russia - the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment which, although suspended, remains in place.
She added: "To make sure our companies get to compete here in Russia, we are working closely with the United States Congress to terminate the application to Jackson-Vanik to Russia and grant Russia permanent normalised trade relations.
"We hope that the Congress will act on this important piece of legislation this month."
However there are concerns in the US Congress about Moscow's support for Iran and Syria, as well as its broader human rights record, so the timing of a vote on the issue remains unclear.
Mr Putin, who is hosting the summit, expressed concern about the world economy, and particularly Europe's debt crisis.
"The priority goal is to fight protectionism in all its forms. It is important to build bridges not walls," he said.
President Hu said: "The world economy today is recovering slowly, and there are still some destabilising factors and uncertainties.
"The underlying impact of the international financial crisis is far from over.
"We will work to maintain the balance between keeping steady and robust growth, adjusting the economic structure and managing inflation expectations. We will boost domestic demand and maintain steady and robust growth as well as basic price stability."
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has left the talks early to return home after her father died.

The ECB said it would buy bonds of the bloc's debt-ridden nations in a bid to bring down their borrowing costs.
The implied borrowing costs for Spain and Italy fell after the announcement.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 2.2%, Korea's Kospi gained 2.6% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 3.1%.
"We think this is a credible plan to addressing the issue, and while there are still political hurdles, we expect those will be addressed," said Alec Young, global equity strategist at S&P Equity Research.
'Ready to act'
That led to concerns that these nations would no longer be able to borrow money from international investors and, therefore, would not be able to repay their debts, further escalating the region's debt crisis.
Many investors feared such developments would not only hurt the eurozone's growth, but could also derail the global economic recovery.
That would have had a knock-on effect on Asia's export-dependent economies, which rely heavily on global demand.
However, the ECB's announcement, and the drop in borrowing costs of Spain and Italy thereafter, has helped allay those fears.
Markets in the US rose, with the Dow Jones index hitting it highest level in almost five years.
In Europe, Germany's Dax index closed 2.9% higher, while France's Cac 40 jumped 3% and the UK's FTSE 100 rose 2.1%.
"The markets were looking for a strong decisive action and a commitment from the central bank that they are ready to act if any issues blow up in the region's bigger economies," Justin Harper of IG Markets told the BBC.
"Last night they got that."
'Risk appetite'
The ECB announcement also provided a boost to the euro currency, which rose against the US dollar and the Japanese yen.
The euro was trading at $1.263 in Asian trading. It also rallied against the Japanese currency to 99.63 yen.
Analysts said that the ECB's plan had boosted investor morale and that they were more confident of investing in riskier assets.
"The ECB's actions afford time, allowing risk appetite to stage a comeback, for now," said Vincent Chaigneau, a strategist at Societe Generale.
However, they warned that while the ECB's plan had helped allay market fears, the crisis was far from over.
"Mr Draghi has won a battle, but cannot win the euro area crisis war by himself," Mr Chaigneau said.
"The hardest task of all - getting governments to drop posturing in return for leadership and deep reforms - still awaits us."

The move follows a series of incidents in which foreign troops have been killed by Afghan soldiers or policemen.
The suspension of training - which only applies to new ALP recruits - will allow US special operations forces to "re-vet" current ALP forces.
US special forces currently have around 1,000 Afghan local police trainees.
"While we have full trust and confidence in our Afghan partners, we believe this is a necessary step to validate our vetting process and ensure the quality indicative of Afghan local police," Col Thomas Collins, spokesperson for US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
The suspension of training would be "temporary", according to Col Collins, adding: "Despite the recent rise in insider attacks, they are relatively rare among SOF [Special Operations Forces]-partnered forces."
An existing eight-step vetting programme will be made more rigorous, officials say.
The number of counter-intelligence teams will be increased and there will be greater vetting when Afghan soldiers return from leave.
Military guidelines on vetting have sometimes not been followed in the past for fear of slowing the growth of the Afghan security forces, officials told the Washington Post.
Operations by forces already trained would continue, as would the recruitment of new trainees, US Special Operations Forces spokesman Lt Col John Harrell told the Associated Press.
There are currently 16,380 members of the ALP.
The Afghan army and national police, trained by Nato, are unaffected by the suspension. The training of Afghan special forces will also continue.
On average, 7,000 Afghan soldiers and 3,700 Afghan police graduate from training every month.
The ALP is a relatively new force, introduced to improve security in some of the most remote parts of the country, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul reports.
'Green-on-blue' attacks On Wednesday, three Australian soldiers were killed by a man in Afghan army uniform in Uruzgan province.
Some 45 coalition troops have died in more than 30 "green-on-blue" attacks this year, at least 15 of them in August alone.
The term refers to the colour-coding systems used by the US military - Nato forces are "blue" and Afghans are "green".
The Taliban has been actively recruiting members of the Afghan security forces, publicly announcing that insider attacks were a central part of their strategy against Nato forces.
Most of the victims of the green-on-blue attacks have been Americans.

The charges cannot be dismissed formally until the end of the inquiry, but prosecutors said all detained miners would be freed.
Local authorities used a controversial apartheid-era law to accuse the miners of provoking police to open fire.
Miners were demanding a huge pay rise and recognition of a new union.
The killings, at the Marikana mine, owned by Lonmin, shocked the nation.
State prosecutors charged 270 miners with murder under the "common purpose" doctrine.
The rule was used by the white-minority apartheid regime to crack down on its black opponents, and at the time was opposed by the now governing African National Congress.
'Machete threats' But he said in a statement earlier that he would not intervene in the case.
Acting national director of prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba held a news conference on Sunday to announce the charges would be scrapped.
"Final charges will only be made once all investigations have been completed," she said.
"The murder charges against the current 270 suspects will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court."
She said those whose addresses have been verified by police would be released on Monday, and the rest would remain in custody until their next court appearance on Thursday.
The BBC's Nomsa Maseko in Johannesburg says public anger, already high over the shootings, was exacerbated by the charges.
On Friday, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe said the charges had "induced a sense of shock, panic and confusion" in the public and demanded a report from state prosecutors to explain their rationale.
The 270 miners, six of whom remain in hospital, were arrested during the protests.
They were charged on Thursday, with the prosecutors arguing they were part of the crowd whose actions provoked the police into opening fire.
No police officers have been charged over the deaths because a judicial inquiry and an internal police review are under way, but these are expected to take several months to complete.
The strike turned violent before the police shooting, with the deaths of 10 people including two police officers and two security guards who were hacked to death.
The protests were triggered by demands for a huge pay rise and recognition of a new union.
Talks are continuing to resolve the dispute, which has shut the mine for the past three weeks.