A SUICIDE BOMBER posing as a Taliban peace envoy assassinated a former Afghan president who for the past year headed a government council trying to negotiate a political settlement with the insurgents.
Tuesday’s attack, carried out in former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Kabul home by a militant who detonated explosives hidden in his turban, dealt a harsh blow to efforts at ending a decade of war.
President Hamid Karzai cut short a visit to the US, calling on Afghans to remain unified in the face of Rabbani’s “martyrdom”. Rabbani’s death came days after a daytime assault by insurgents on the US Embassy and NATO headquarters, deepening a sense of insecurity in the capital.
NATO said in a statement that two suicide bombers were involved in the attack on Rabbani, both of them men who had feigned a desire to reconcile with the government. It was unclear if a second bomber was able to detonate his explosives.
Afghan officials, however, insisted there was only one attacker. Four of Rabbani’s bodyguards also died and a key presidential adviser was wounded in the bombing, they said.
Fazel Karim Aimaq, a former lawmaker from Kunduz province and a friend of Rabbani’s, told reporters outside the former president’s home that Rabbani had come back from a trip to Iran in order to meet with a man who had been described as a high-ranking Taliban contact. The visitor was shown into the house but not fully searched, Aimaq said. When Rabbani appeared, the man shook the former president’s hand and bowed as a sign of respect, Aimaq said.
“Then his turban exploded,” he said. Police confirmed that the bomb had been hidden in the turban.
Rabbani’s death will dent efforts to keep in check the regional and ethnic rivalries that partly feed the insurgency. As one of the wise old men of Afghan politics and the leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Rabbani’s role in the attempts to seek a political deal with the Taliban – with US blessing – will be hard to replace soon. His death could unleash a well of resentment among some senior Northern Alliance members, who accuse Karzai of colluding with the Taliban.
Killing will not deter US help – Obama
Already Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities have begun to rearm in the face of negotiations with the Taliban. Rabbani’s death is likely to accelerate that process and lay the foundation for a possible civil war once US combat troops leave the country or take on support roles by the end of 2014.
President Barack Obama said the killing will not deter the US and Afghanistan from helping that country’s people live freely. He said the former president’s death is tragic because he was a man who cared deeply about Afghanistan. Obama commented at the start of a meeting in New York with Karzai.
Shukria Barakzai, a lawmaker from Kabul, was visibly shaken as she stood outside Rabbani’s house in the Wazir Akbar Khan area of the city, near the US Embassy and NATO headquarters.
“We don’t want the whole peace process to get stuck,” she said. “We have to continue, we have to.”
Rabbani, who was about 70 years old, headed the country’s High Peace Council, set up by the Afghan government to work toward a political solution to the decade-long war. It had made little headway since it was formed a year ago, but it was backed by many in the international community as an important first step toward a settlement.
Former President continued as a leader
Rabbani was president from 1992-1996, heading the Afghan government that preceded the Taliban rule. After he was driven from Kabul in 1996, he became the nominal head of the Northern Alliance, mostly minority Tajiks and Uzbeks, who swept to power in Kabul as a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, headed the Jamiat-e-Islami political party.
“We lost our leader. We lost our leader,” Habibullah, a close friend of Rabbani’s, said as he stood crying outside a hospital.
Recent kililngs have prompted Karzai to urge Afghan religious leaders to condemn the use of turban bombs.
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