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Afghan Peace Council Head Rabbani Killed

September 20, 2011

Afghan police say the chairman of the country's High Peace Council, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed in a suicide attack at his home in Kabul.

The High Peace Council leads government efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanikzai said Rabbani was killed inside his house on September 20 by a suicide bomber who concealed explosives in his turban. Stanikzai said several people were wounded in the explosion.

A senior Afghan government official, who requested anonymity, told Radio Free Afghanistan that it was a top Taliban commander who had requested a meeting with Rabbani, who then blew himself up in the peace negotiator's presence.

Rabbani had led a year-long effort to negotiate a political end to fighting in Afghanistan, with little progress.

In March of this year, Rabbani told Radio Free Afghanistan that he was optimistic about the prospects of negotiating an end to the conflict with the Taliban:

But Kabul-based Afghan analyst Waheed Mozhdah believes that since that time, Rabbani had lost faith in the insurgent group's willingness to find an end to the war.

Rabbani Had 'Appeared Weary' Peace Council Role

"In recent times, Rabbani was very disappointed with the Taliban," he says. "He used to say that they are not prepared for peace. He adopted a strong anti-Taliban posture."

"Some of his friends even criticized him for being so scathing about the insurgents while his job as the head of the peace council was to reach out to them.

"It appeared that he was weary of leading the peace council and was looking to resign from its leadership."

Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, led a powerful mujahedeen party during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, and then became president of the Afghan government following the Soviet withdrawal.

He was driven from leadership when the Taliban rose to power in the mid-1990s, and became the de-facto head of the Northern Alliance. That group filled the power vacuum in Kabul after the Taliban's fall in late 2001.

Human Rights Watch once named Rabbani as one of a number of senior Afghan leaders who may have committed war crimes that killed or displaced thousands of Afghans during the country's civil war in the early 1990s.

In 2007, the Afghan parliament granted a general amnesty for officials accused of crimes during the previous quarter century of fighting. Legislators said the move would help heal deep national divisions.

Rabbani's assassination comes just one week after insurgents carried out a 20-hour siege near Western embassies and the NATO compound and three coordinated suicide bomb attacks on other parts of Kabul.

The assault was the third major insurgent attack in the city since June. At least five policemen and 11 civilians were killed.

All those attacks are believed to be the work of the Haqqani network, a Taliban-allied insurgent faction based along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Pakistan Faces Increasing Criticism

In the wake of last week's siege, U.S. officials have become increasingly public in their criticism of Pakistan for what they say is its protection of the insurgent network.

"There is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistani government," the U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, Cameron Munter, recently told Radio Pakistan.

"This is something that must stop. We have to make sure that we work together to fight terrorism, to recognize the common enemy, the people who attack Pakistanis, the people who attack Americans, the people who attack other allies of ours. We have to fight these people. We can't let events like what happened in Kabul take place."

The Pakistani government moved swiftly to condemn Rabbani's assassination. In a joint statement, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, described the late Rabbani as a "friend."

with agency reports

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/rabbani_killed_afghanistan_taliban/24334470.html

Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.