Taliban opponent reportedly is slain

Followers say leader injured in explosion

By Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, 9/11/2001

ASHINGTON - Intelligence reports show the guerrilla commander who led the fight against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, Ahmad Shah Masood, died in a weekend explosion, US officials said yesterday amid conflicting comments about the opposition leader's fate.

In Sunday's attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up after gaining access to Masood's office in the far north of Afghanistan. Masood's forces control about 5 percent of Afghanistan and are fighting the Taliban north of the capital, Kabul.

''We believe he's dead,'' a US official said on condition of anonymity. ''Intelligence reports from the region and elsewhere say he's dead.''

A senior State Department official, also on condition of anonymity, said: ''We do think he's dead but we truly don't know for sure. You can have excellent intelligence ... but unless you have the body you can't really know.''

However the Associated Press, reporting from Kabul, quoted Masood's brother, Ahmed Wali, as saying the opposition leader was unconscious and in serious condition after undergoing emergency surgery to remove shrapnel from his head.

Members of Masood's alliance, meanwhile, said their commander was being treated for minor wounds, and opposition spokesmen inside and outside Afghanistan denied an earlier report by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that Masood had been killed.

''We're sorry to see this attempt on the life of a key factional leader in Afghanistan,'' State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said at a media briefing. ''This could set back the search for a peaceful settlement of the decades-old war. The Afghanistan conflict cannot be resolved through violence.''

Responsibility for the attack was unclear; the Taliban denied involvement.

A secretary for Masood from the opposition stronghold in the Panjsher valley told Reuters that two Arab journalists were with Masood for an interview when one of them, who had attached explosives to his body, blew himself up.

The suicide bomber was killed along with one of Masood's followers, and the Afghan commander's guards killed the second person posing as a journalist, the secretary said on condition of anonymity. He said they had not determined the nationalities or affiliation of the attackers.

Taliban chief spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said the Taliban were not behind the incident, which occurred a day after a powerful blast in Kabul wounded a number of people inside the Taliban's Interior Ministry.

No one claimed responsibility for that attack, but the Taliban have blamed Masood for previous Kabul blasts. The opposition says they are the work of dissidents within the Taliban.

The Taliban government is recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

''We have sought for years through multilateral and bilateral means to help end this conflict and establish a broad-based government that can rebuild the country in Afghanistan,'' Reeker said. ''We neither recognize nor support any faction as the government of Afghanistan.''

Masood's anti-Taliban alliance is officially led by President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was driven from Kabul in 1996 but is recognized by the United Nations as Afghanistan's leader.

Soviet forces repeatedly failed to crush Masood during the 1980s, when annual attacks on his Panjsher valley stronghold were repulsed and he became a romantic figure in the West. Today he is the driving force behind the opposition to Taliban rule.

After appearing near defeat a year ago, he has kept Taliban forces off balance with guerrilla attacks across the north.

Masood's forces control the northeast of Afghanistan and are fighting the Taliban north of Kabul on the route toward the Panjsher valley, the commander's native stronghold.

The Taliban are rooted in the majority Pashtun group, while Masood is a member of the minority ethnic Tajiks and has drawn strength from minorities that feel threatened by the Pashtun drive for dominance.

The Taliban government has been widely accused of human rights abuses in enforcing its austere version of Islam.

Meanwhile, Iran's state-run television reported yesterday that most of Afghanistan's neighbors plan to hold an urgent meeting following the assassination attempt.

Representatives from Iran, Russia, Tajikstan, India, and Uzbekistan will meet soon in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, Iranian television said. It gave no date for the talks.

In Moscow, the Kremlin said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke to former Soviet Tajikistan's president, Imomali Rakhmonov, about Afghanistan yesterday, the day after the attack on Masood.

This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 9/11/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.