Ahmed Shah Massoud
Slowly stalking an afghan 'lion'
Assassins of Northern Alliance chief faced weeks of delays until finally he met with them
6.12.02   Craig Pyes & W C. Rempel L.A.Times
also Sebastian Rotella (Paris), Josh Meyer, Bob Drogin, Doyle McManus & Robin Wright (Wash.D.C.), Nona Yates (L.A.) 		ex - Afghani  
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KABUL, Afghanistan   When 9.11.01 dawned here, charismatic Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masoud was stashed in a refrigerator at a Tajikistan morgue, killed 48 hours earlier by Al Qaeda assassins. His death was a desperate secret. A cadre of close aides & officers hid his body, and the truth, while his outnumbered resistance fighters clung to tenuous positions under relentless attack by Taliban & Al Qaeda forces. Fearing collapse of alliance defenses if word got out, the aides manufactured a fog of disinformation. Hardly anyone was informed, not the field commanders, not even the dead leader's family. He suffered an accident, only minor injuries, they said. And for days, those lies kept the resistance intact.

"When I heard about the assassination, I was 100% sure that the resistance would be over in a matter of days," recalled one of Masoud's closest advisors, Foreign Minister Abdullah, in a recent interview. The defeat of the Northern Alliance was much closer than authorities have previously acknowledged. Had Masoud's forces been dispersed, as Abdullah feared, the U.S. military would have lost a surrogate ground force--even before its need was evident. And American troops almost certainly would have been required sooner in Afghanistan and would have been deployed at much greater risk.
Al Qaeda targeted Masoud to eliminate the last obstacle to Taliban control of all of Afghanistan. Masoud was also an impediment to Osama bin Laden's grand plan to create an Islamic empire beyond Afghanistan's northern borders in Central Asia. Some American officials believe that the killing was a personal gift to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar from Bin Laden, in gratitude for the sanctuary provided to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Masoud had spent most of his adult life as a rebel. "Ever since I was 20, I've been in hiding," he told a journalist a year before his death. He made his legend as the "Lion of Panjshir" fighting Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. During that time, personal, ethnic and political rivalries developed in the anti-Russian moujahedeen camp between Masoud, an ethnic Tajik, and the ethnic Pushtun leaders favored by the Pakistanis. Friction also was evident between Masoud & religious fundamentalists, including Sayyaf & bin Bin Laden, both favorites of the Saudis. bin Laden & other future founders of Al Qaeda were among the many Arabs who fought alongside Sayyaf during the war with the Soviets.
After the Soviet defeat, Masoud served in govt of Pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani as defense minister. Sayyaf served as a presidential aide. But warlord factionalism & fierce infighting led to thousands of civilian deaths during a period when the U.S. kept its diplomatic distance. In Sept. 1996, Taliban militias swept into Kabul, the capital, and toppled the Rabbani administration. Masoud withdrew to the north. The Taliban immediately imposed a severe Islamic system, and issued a death decree for the fugitive defense minister. Once again, Masoud was a rebel.

    Cover-up in Masood killing probe alleged
    3.25.02   Neena Gopal Gulf News
Kabul   Man known in West as 'voice' of slain Tajik leader Ahmed Shah Masood, warned yesterday against British officials' cover-up in investigation of his brother's assassination. In Gulf News interview , Ahmed Wali Masood, interim administration's high commissioner to UK, said in Kabul: "I fear there is a cover-up and that the British investigators have established a link between those who planned his assassination & elements in Pakistan that wanted him dead, and they are trying to keep this quiet. This must be exposed. His assassin must be brought to justice. What they did was a crime against Afghanistan, against the Afghan people," he said. Wali Masood, planning to move back to ministry of foreign affairs for new assignment in coming months, was also critical of Hamid Karzai interim administration for not doing enough to track down the killers. "This administration has done nothing," he said. Ahmed Shah Masood died days before 9.11.02. 2 men posing as Arab journalists exploded a bomb hidden in their camera, fatally injuring the Mujahideen commander known as the 'lion of Panjsher'.

Afghan capital Kabul has turned into a virtual shrine for Masood. His life-size pictures are pasted on city walls and in street corners with passersby leaving tokens of their affection near some of the pictures. Wali Masood also made thinly veiled attack on the administration, saying his country's return to normality was more a natural progression of events rather than any effort by the govt itself. "It's not the govt that has improved things, it has improved by itself. In 15 months' time this govt must start showing results, which they haven't done so far. Otherwise people's trust will go," he said. The new govt is dominated by Tajiks, many close lieutenants of Ahmed Shah Masood but chief Hamid Karzai is Pashtun. He was equally harsh on what he saw as efforts by elements in Pakistan to destabilise the south. "What is it except efforts by Pakistan's ISI trying to create these pockets of rebellion in Paktia, Khost and Gardez? Without their support, none of those elements would be able to operate. Its logistics, its arms," Masood said.

On former King Zahir Shah repatriation postponed Saturday yet again by several weeks, he said: "We have great respect for the king, but after speculation that he would come to Bonn for the conference, he did not show up. Now, he has postponed his return to Kabul for the third time. The people believe that until the king returns nothing will be alright, but now they can see that even though he has not returned, things are coming back to normal," he said. When asked if he had any reservations about the king's return, he said: "I have some doubts, not about the king, but people under the king's umbrella who could misuse his name." Wali Masood also warned that elements led by some former commanders were waiting in the wings to exploit any weaknesses. "They are waiting to see how the situation develops, but they are making their moves. Right now they are charging us with cooperating with infidels. People will know when they see actual change in their lives. Right now, the same people who got money in past from their old sources still get it & use it for the all the things they did before," he concluded.

After the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya & Tanzania, CIA agents met with Masoud in Tajikistan. They sought intelligence support & help capturing or assassinating bin Laden, whom they blamed for the bombings. Masoud listened thoughtfully, according to alliance sources familiar with the secret sessions in Tajik capital Dushanbe.
But he considered the Americans shortsighted. The Clinton administration had made catching bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda the centerpiece of its Afghan policy. "The main issue for me is the Taliban," Masoud said at the time. "Without the Taliban, Osama can't do anything." Furthermore, Masoud regarded Al Qaeda, the Taliban and its main backer, Pakistan, as "an evil triangle" and a common threat. But "all of our talking points were bringing down Osama," said one U.S. diplomat, noting that American policy until 9.11.01 was influenced by the Pakistani idea of reforming the Taliban and working with the regime.Yet evidence mounted that Bin Laden was steadily increasing his influence over Omar & Taliban regime.
"We kept warning about the growing 'Arabization' of Afghanistan," said a senior U.S. diplomat in Pakistan. "But no one was listening." About a year after the Masoud-CIA meeting, a powerful truck bomb exploded just outside Omar's compound in Kandahar. Masoud agents were responsible, U.S. & alliance officials now acknowledge. The explosion reportedly killed 10, including 3 of Omar's bodyguards. It left a crater the size of a tennis court. Omar narrowly escaped injury. Alliance operatives also attacked other Taliban targets but were unable to penetrate Al Qaeda's security to mount attacks against bin Laden. "There wasn't any possibility to find him," an Afghan intelligence officer said.

The crisis facing Northern Alliance forces on 9.11.01 had been months in the making. Throughout spring & summer 2001, as many as 16,000 Taliban & Al Qaeda fighters had massed in Takhar province in the north, a particular menace to Masoud's stronghold in the Panjshir Valley. Intelligence confirmed that the Taliban planned a "final offensive" to wrest complete control of the country, then infiltrate the mountainous regions of Central Asia.
Masoud dispatched Abdullah, his trusted aide, to Washington in July. He had been there before as an emissary for Masoud, seldom getting beyond low-level State Dept employees & think-tank analysts. He was frustrated. "They were having debates about moderate & non-moderate Taliban," Abdullah said. "It was ridiculous. There are those who can speak softly, but they are not moderate people."

This time, Abdullah carried maps & reports on Taliban & Al Qaeda troop concentrations. A Northern Alliance defeat would be harmful to regional security and to U.S. interests, he argued. He pressed the U.S. to intervene in 2 areas: by pressuring Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban and by providing arms & money to the resistance. He sensed a shift with the Bush White House. For a change, he met with senior State Dept & National Security Council officials, and he was invited to return in Sept. for more talks. Abdullah was hoping for a possible breakthrough. As early as 1997, the State Dept had advised him that its Afghan policy was "under review." It still was "under review" as Abdullah left Washington in summer 2001.

Back in Afghanistan, where the Northern Alliance held barely 5% of the country, Abdullah said leaders calculated what little international support they could count on. "But Masoud thought that one day the whole world will come to us. One day this will change. But he said, 'I hope it's not too late.' " A phone call had cleared the Moroccan journalists to enter Northern Alliance territory, a good word from an Egyptian friend of senior alliance official Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Sayyaf knew the caller as Dr. Hani, an old friend from the jihad against the Russians years earlier. He claimed to be calling from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The resistance leader agreed to extend his hospitality to the journalists for a few days and help arrange a tour of the front lines.

That the Northern Alliance was still intact on the morning of 9.11.01 was a tribute to Masoud's forceful leadership. Even after a devastating blow the previous year when his former headquarters at Taloqan was overrun, Masoud single-handedly persuaded commanders, ethnic leaders and tribal factions to rally against the Taliban. He persuaded Iran to give more financial support and Russia to keep providing materiel. None of the country's major warlords, Uzbek Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Hazara leader Karim Khalili and Tajik Gen. Ismail Khan, was in the country at the start of 2001, but Masoud coaxed them all back by spring. They started carrying out harassing actions against Taliban positions.

Masoud may have inflamed animosities in spring 2001 when he accepted an invitation to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, his first official trip to the West. Supporters said it was part of a plan to transform his image from local military hero to national opposition political leader, and to attract Western support for the resistance. The high-profile visit caused friction within Masoud's alliance. The old fundamentalist leaders such as Rabbani & Sayyaf were being eclipsed by Masoud's rising international profile. Some Masoud loyalists assert privately that seeds of betrayal might have sprung from that April trip to France. French investigators believe that this is when the assassination plot began as well. Evidence shows that fake documents for the killers were prepared in the following weeks and that one of the letters of introduction was composed on an IBM desktop computer, later discovered in Kabul.
 When Masoud held a news conference outside the European Parliament, a reporter asked if he had a message for the White House. According to published accounts, Masoud responded: "If President Bush doesn't help us, then these terrorists will damage the U.S. & Europe very soon, and it will be too late." The wife of one of Masoud's assassins later told European law enforcement officials that Masoud's comments were taken as a threat to the Taliban & bin Laden supporters. In a recent book, she told Belgian author-journalist Marie-Rose Armesto: Masoud "went to ask for help against us. He wanted weapons to kill us. He had to be stopped."

A 4 month Times investigation found that Masoud, 48, was assassinated nearly 3 weeks later than planned. The killers posed as journalists, living and traveling among Masoud's top aides, including his intelligence and military chiefs, apparently without raising serious suspicions. But they repeatedly failed to gain access to him. The killers were welcomed into Northern Alliance territory by a high-ranking resistance official with old ties to Bin Laden and Taliban leaders who said that they came recommended by a friend. The plot was carried out by a Europe-based Tunisian terrorist cell, likely as repayment to Al Qaeda for training at its Afghan terrorist camps.
CIA officials were among the handful of insiders informed of Masoud's death. After 9.11.01, the CIA rushed to save the Northern Alliance. Agents helped wire its shaken elements back together and turned resistance fighters into an offensive force that helped sweep the Taliban from power. The story behind Masoud's assassination is a tale of a patient & calculated plot that nearly undermined America's first steps in its new war on terrorism. It was pieced together from records and scores of interviews on three continents with witnesses, law enforcement officials, intelligence agents and military leaders.

As early as 1999, European investigators detected increased Al Qaeda recruiting among Tunisian emigres in the West. By fall 2000, Abdelsattar Dahmane, 39, Tunisian residing in Belgium, was one of the scores of Arab & North African Muslims from Europe studying terrorism in one of Al Qaeda's Afghan camps. He lived in a house near the camps with his Moroccan wife, Malika, surrounded by elite Al Qaeda fighters. Sometime in spring or early summer 2001, Dahmane was selected for a suicide mission. He had studied journalism in Tunisia & Belgium and would pose as a television interviewer. His faux cameraman would be another Tunisian, Rachid Bourawi Alwaer, an illegal immigrant to Belgium who worked odd jobs in construction.
European investigators tracking the histories of Masoud's killers found that Dahmane had been active in Brussels & London with the Tunisian Fighting Group, terrorist affiliate of Al Qaeda. Authorities believe that the contract to kill Masoud was a classic exchange of services. The Tunisian Fighting Group wanted its recruits trained in Afghan terrorist camps and agreed to take on the Masoud hit "to pay the rent," officials said. "Tunisians have attained a high level of operational importance & influence" within Al Qaeda, said a French law enforcement official, particularly since 9.11.01. They have been active in recent plots to bomb American embassies in Paris & Rome, investigative documents also show.

In Afghanistan, security officers said that Masoud had been a target of assassination attempts by bin Laden & the Taliban for more than a year. Previous plans to blow up his helicopter were thwarted. The Taliban once called in an airstrike on Masoud's office. In 2000, security officials intercepted 3 infiltrators carrying powerful C-4 plastic explosives. Masoud's security chief said people working close to the resistance leader had been paid to sabotage him. "Osama was actively trying to recruit spies inside the Panjshir Valley," said Arif, now head of intelligence for the interim Afghan govt. But no one saw the Tunisians coming. Their identities were buried in stolen passports, false Pakistani visas and misleading letters of introduction, a plot with bin Laden's personal fingerprints all over it, according to Arif & European investigators.

The 2 men with Moroccan passports carried camera equipment aboard the aging Russian-made helicopter, one of the few working machines in what was then a pathetic little air force serving the Northern Alliance. They braced for the usual rough ride that late summer day in 2001. They carried letters of introduction. They were tv journalists from a London Islamic center concerned with "human rights issues for Muslims all over the world." One was noted to be the center's best journalist. The other hid explosives in his battery pack.
In his rear base camp, Masoud was eager to meet journalists, esp. from the Muslim world. He was frustrated by MidEast perceptions that his resistance fighters were in league with the Russians & other foreigners against the interests of fellow Muslims. Masoud seized every opportunity to argue that the Taliban was oppressing Afghanistan with the assistance of foreign Arabs & Pakistanis.

There were other journalists on board. During the flight, one of them videotaped the helicopter passenger compartment. It was typical B-roll material. Filler. Atmospherics. The Moroccans ducked their heads, tucking their faces into scarves & sleeves. One of the other journalists says he wondered why the 2 Moroccans seemed to be hiding.
Bismillah Khan, one of Masoud's most trusted generals, led the tour after getting Masoud's approval for the journalists' visit. He was eager to show them that no foreigners, only Afghans, were fighting for the alliance. The journalists seemed uninterested in what they saw. "They didn't ask many questions like other journalists," the general recalled later. "They were very reserved." But no one challenged their credentials. They were Sayyaf's guests. And it would be months before anyone could check the origins of the phone call that persuaded Sayyaf to invite them behind alliance lines. Investigators later would trace the phone number to Taliban country, the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The visitors were both in their 30s. The reporter was slightly older. He was called Karim Touzani, well-fed, affable and relaxed. The cameraman called himself Kacem Bakkali. He seldom spoke in front of others. There was one exception, an older brother of Masoud later heard. It was during a bumpy car ride. The otherwise quiet Bakkali urgently insisted that the driver slow down. The severe jostling, he said, could damage his camera.

Sometime after touring the Northern Alliance battle front, the Moroccan journalists were escorted to another resistance stronghold in the Panjshir Valley. A gathering of resistance leaders was underway--a shura, or council, convened in a heavily guarded building. Sentries blocked the journalists from entering. Masoud was inside. So was most of the top echelon of the Northern Alliance, at one moment in one room. The journalists insisted on access. The sentries were unmoved. The journalists pressed for a brief visit, a few quick camera angles, nothing intrusive. One of the guards disappeared inside to seek permission. It was denied. "We just need one shot," one of them persisted. Again a guard trudged back inside to present the visitors' case. Again, it was denied.
For much of their visit, the journalists stayed in a guesthouse of the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley. They rarely went on interviews. They asked few questions. They took little video footage. One day, Masoud arrived unexpectedly at the journalists' door. By chance, the 2 men were away and returned too late. They missed the commander and a chance for their on-camera interview. Masoud then invited the journalists to accompany him aboard his helicopter back to Khodja Bahauddin, Masoud's isolated Tajik border HQ. The journalists packed camera & battery pack for the trip. They were ready to depart when Masoud's bodyguards confronted them. The rickety old Russian MI-17 was overloaded. They would have to stay behind.

The two journalists bumped from Masoud's helicopter ended up stuck in Panjshir for several days. A second helicopter never arrived. Bad weather. The number of near-misses was beginning to pile up, almost getting into the shura, almost getting Masoud alone at the guesthouse, almost getting aboard the resistance leader's helicopter. Finally, the skies cleared. Another helicopter arrived to ferry the men to Khodja Bahauddin. They were introduced as journalist guests of Sayyaf. But, again, the promised interview was delayed. The long-anticipated Taliban-Al Qaeda offensive had begun. Masoud was preoccupied. The journalists had to wait. They were given a room next door to Gen. Mohammed Arif. They were neighbors of Masoud's chief of internal security.

The journalists wandered through the village of Khodja Bahauddin, killing time awaiting their audience with Masoud. Days passed. They became familiar figures to Masoud's bodyguards, made up of his elite commando troops. The guards were never alerted to any special threats. Masoud's younger brother, Ahmad Wali, would later report that "a source in Pakistan" warned him about Al Qaeda sending killers "disguised as journalists." He says he passed it along.
But reports of assassination intrigues were common. So were foreign journalists. "They had lots of plans to kill Commander Masoud. Which report was good?" said Arif, shrugging. Nonetheless, Arif would later claim that he too was growing suspicious. He says he even tried to stop the interview. "I told Commander Masoud, 'Please don't meet these two Arabs. Let me arrest them.' " By Arif's account, Masoud thought about it for 2 minutes, then said: "Forget it. These people are just journalists."

Intensity of a renewed Taliban attack Sat. evening, 9.8.01, caught alliance forces by surprise. Gen. Bismillah Khan feared that his troops might not survive to daylight. At the height of battle, he called Masoud by satellite phone. Bismillah Khan, stocky, blue-eyed, workaholic warlord, had fought alongside Masoud for 22 years. He was especially distressed to advise his friend & commander that a Taliban breakthrough seemed imminent. A Masoud aide later said Bismillah Khan was near panic that night. Over the phone, Masoud offered encouragement and cool advice on troop deployments. Later, Masoud retired to his quarters with a visiting friend, Masood Khalili, Northern Alliance's ambassador to India. The 2 men sat cross-legged on floor cushions "talking about many things, poetry, politics, the situation in Afghanistan," recalled Khalili.

Masoud had an ornately bound volume of the works of 14th century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz. He asked Khalili to recite over & over again a favorite verse about friends sitting, talking, enjoying a night like many nights to come, though this night "will never be repeated." The 2 friends gazed out at the village of Khodja Bahauddin, the stars, the Amu Darya River, until about 4 a.m. Masoud was barely asleep when his personal secretary delivered news that Bismillah Khan's front line had held. Masoud made his morning prayer, then slept until daylight.
The 2 journalists learned early the morning of 9.9.01 that finally they would have their audience with Masoud. It was a sunny day in Khodja Bahauddin as they prepared their equipt. The interview would be conducted next door, in the bungalow of security chief Arif.
Remarkably, though the 2 Arab men had lived among Masoud's closest & most cautious advisors for more than 20 days, no one knew their real names, ethnic origins or ominous associations. Affable Touzani was really Dahmane, whose wife still lived with the families of other Al Qaeda agents near Jalalabad. Bakkali was really Alwaer, the taciturn construction worker from Brussels. The cameraman strapped on his battery pack. He cinched it around his waist. Over his usual breakfast of tea with bread, cheese, almonds and cream, Masoud received more encouraging reports from his field commanders. He was eager to meet the journalists, to make his case that the Taliban was relying on foreigners, Pakistanis & Arabs.

Masoud made a radio call to Bismillah Khan at the front in Jabal os Saraj. He asked the general's communications officer if they "could send up some bodies of dead Arabs by helicopter to show the journalists." At Arif's bungalow, Masoud was on the phone again when an aide escorted the journalists into the room. Holding the phone to his ear with one hand, Masoud reached out to shake hands. In addition to the 2 he still knew as the Moroccans, a third journalist joined them. Fahim Dashty, a Panjshiri, was producing a documentary on the guerrilla hero. He set up his own camera & audio gear in the back of the room. Masoud apologized that this day had been so long in coming. Dahmane & Alwaer said they were pleased to meet the legendary leader. They presented their letters of introduction from the Islamic Observation Center in London and its Arabic News Intl affiliate, the letters ending with: "May Allah reward you" for any cooperation.
Before the questioning began, Masoud asked Arif to try again to get Bismillah Khan, still hoping to fly some Arab bodies to his camp. Under any circumstance, such a request would have been difficult. Masoud commanders said one of their fellow officers had set up a lucrative trade in selling bodies back to the enemy. It helped finance their war effort. Arabs, the commanders said in interviews, fetched higher prices than the Talibs because bin Laden was willing to pay dearly for the corpses of his men.
[ Reverent final act of a compassionate leader or calculated elimination of tangible evidence by an extravagantly funded criminal administrator ? ]

Masoud sat in a large stuffed chair. Smiling, he slipped off his trademark pakul, a sort of Afghan beret, and ordered green tea for everyone. They made small talk. What had the men found coming through Taliban territory? The people are unhappy, Dahmane responded, chatting easily. Arab & Pakistani military men roam Kabul. Omar refused them an interview because television "is haram", forbidden under Islamic law. Taliban ministers were not forthcoming. Masoud was amused. "I saw for the last time Mr. Masoud's smile," said Ahmad Jamshid, Masoud's personal secretary.
R Cameraman Alwaer calmly set up his equipment in the middle of the room. He seemed impassive, uninvolved with the conversation around him. He adjusted his tripod, set to its lowest level so the camera lens was chest-high opposite Masoud. He asked to remove a small table between them. Ambassador Khalili, seated on a couch to Masoud's right to help translate, recalled trying to loosen up the commander before the questions started. "The cameraman was quite burly," Khalili said, "and to get the commander in the mood for the interview, I quipped in Persian, 'Is he a wrestler or a photographer?' "

Masoud asked to see the interview questions, a list that Khalili then translated for the commander from English into Persian. With that, the Lion of Panjshir turned to the camera and said: "You can start filming now." Jamshid, the secretary, stepped out of the room to avoid being in the frame. Dashty, the documentary maker, still was adjusting his camera, trying to compensate for back-lighting from a window behind Masoud. Dahmane started to ask the first question. Alwaer switched on the camera. Khalili said "blue, thick fire" rushed at him, and he heard a "poof." His teeth clenched. He said he heard a voice inside telling him that this was his final moment. "Then I started screaming, 'God is great!' " And he lost consciousness.

Dashty jumped in surprise at the flash of light, thinking that his camera had malfunctioned. "Then I felt a burning all over my hands, legs and face. I rushed out of the room," he said. Jamshid ran up, wide-eyed. What happened to Commander Masoud? he gasped. That's when Dashty looked back at the room for the first time. He saw fire, smoke, dust, smashed windows, broken furniture. The room was destroyed. He smelled gunpowder. The bomb in the battery pack had blown the body of cameraman Alwaer in half. But Dahmane had only minor cuts from flying glass. He tried to run from the scene, muttering that he didn't know what happened. Security officers locked him in a room. When he escaped through a window, he was killed.

Haji Mohammad Omar, Masoud's bodyguard for 12 years, rushed inside. Everything was on fire. He found Masoud still seated in the armchair, surrounded by devastation, his face and body covered in blood. Masoud whispered: "Pick me up." At Jabal os Saraj, the resistance fighters of Bismillah Khan had prepared a large meal for Masoud & his entourage. They were expected for lunch after the interview. No one arrived. No one called to explain. The general picked up his satellite phone & called Khodja Bahauddin. No one answered. At Masoud's camp, it was a 4-minute drive from the bungalow to the airstrip. Omar, the bodyguard, held Masoud in the backseat, the commander's head on his lap. He was still breathing as they bounced toward the helicopter pad, but blood poured from his thigh. And as they pulled up to the aircraft, the bodyguard knew that it was hopeless.
"Amir Sahib had stopped breathing," he said, a familiar reference to "the big boss." Ambassador Khalili faded in and out of consciousness. Once airborne, he revived briefly, he recalled. "I saw my commander's face and thought to myself, 'He's dying & I'm dying.' " The injured Dashty remembered that "everyone was quiet." The only sound was the helicopter rotors.

They reached a Tajikistan medical clinic within 10 minutes. Masoud needed no medical treatment. 2 pieces of shrapnel had pierced his heart. His body was moved to an operating room and laid on a table, covered with a sheet of white paper. Jamshid called the inner circle of advisors to the clinic, telling them that Masoud was slightly injured. One by one they arrived, waiting outside the operating room. A doctor appeared. "It's too late," he said. "We can't do anything. He's already martyred." Jamshid fainted. He awoke later with IVs in his arms, surrounded by doctors. Another young Masoud assistant arrived to find the bloody white paper sheet draped over the body on the operating table. In a fury, he tore away the sheet and burst into tears. "This was the lowest point in the history of our movement," said one resistance official. "We felt lost."

Finally, there were 7 aides gathered at the clinic. They agreed to a pact of secrecy & lies. The biggest fear was that once news of Masoud's death was known, their troops would lose heart and Taliban troops would quickly overrun them. "We needed time," said a member of that group. "Masoud was head of a cause. He was heading a nation. We did not want that cause, that nation, to collapse, so, we had to lie." Gen. Mohammed Qassim Fahim was picked to succeed the fallen leader. Today, he is defense minister of the interim govt and one of the most powerful political figures in the country. That afternoon, he was a reluctant successor, accepting only after the others insisted. When night fell, Masoud's body was spirited to a nearby town. It was hidden in a refrigerated vault at the local morgue.

Back out on the battlefields in Takhar province & in the Panjshir Valley, Taliban & Al Qaeda forces unleashed wave after wave of new assaults. 3 heavy offensives were repulsed Sept. 9 to 11. Mohammed Ghani, who was commanding the forces holding the front line north of Kabul, said many of his troops were killed or wounded. "They expected to sweep through our lines," he said. "They thought this would be the final battle for Afghanistan." Rumors that Masoud was dead swept the Taliban side of the front. In lulls between battles, the fighters used satellite phones and walkie-talkies to call their resistance counterparts to taunt & threaten. Despite the battlefield standoff, their messages brimmed with confidence. They demanded: Surrender or die.
Days later, Masoud's body still was refrigerated, his death still unconfirmed. Fighters of the Northern Alliance still clung to their defensive positions, from the Panjshir to the Tajik border. But the rest of the world had changed. Immediately after 9.11.01, leaders of the resistance began to realize that they might have a new ally in a vengeful U.S.   Taliban fighters must have realized the same. They acted confused. Their offensive abruptly stopped. Their forces dug into defensive positions.

In the days that followed, the messages over Taliban satellite phones & walkie-talkies changed too. Taliban commanders started calling on their resistance counterparts to unite against the threat of foreign invasion. A few days after 9.11.01, in the skies over the Panjshir Valley, a dark green helicopter appeared out of the north. The MI- 17 had a familiar look. It was the same aircraft making up that pathetic little Northern Alliance fleet. But this one was new, freshly painted, a handsome machine. Observed a wistful alliance official at the sight: "We never managed to acquire even one new helicopter from the Americans to take Commander Masoud back & forth." The Russian helicopter landed outside a compound where alliance leaders waited. It carried CIA officers with a proposal.
For years, Masoud had urged the U.S. to take on the Taliban in order to stop bin Laden. Now, the U.S. was seeking alliance help to take on the Taliban in order to stop bin Laden. For years, Masoud had thrown his forces against the Taliban, vainly asking the West for guns, money and supplies. Now, the U.S. promised guns, money and supplies. The head of the CIA team said he was disappointed at having missed so many previous opportunities.

For the alliance, there remained internal rivalries and lingering concerns about a pact with foreigners. "For us this was a whole new thing," acknowledged an Afghan official close to the negotiations. But in a matter of days, the resistance had gone from the brink of collapse to rejuvenation. It was as if "suddenly something fell out of the sky," said alliance leaders. In the secret meeting, Fahim, Arif and Abdullah agreed to full cooperation. By then, Masoud's body had been moved from its secret refrigerated vault. Today, he is buried on an Afghan mountaintop.

    Addul Haq
    Former soldier ready to fight for change
    9.30.01   Paul Watson L.A. Times
Abdul Haq … 2 years ago, when the former guerrilla fighter was trying to persuade Afghans to end their relentless civil war, a pair of masked gunmen scaled the wall of his home in this city near the Afghan border and killed his wife and 11-year-old son and their bodyguard. Haq was out of the country in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, … assisting UN peace efforts as a mediator, and pushing hard for Afghans to negotiate their own solution to the civil war, when the gunmen came … killers have eliminated several Afghan peace activists in Pakistan in recent years. Haq, a leader of Afghanistan's moderates in exile, shares the Pushtun blood of the country's Taliban rulers … Haq, a Cold War ally of the U.S. who led the single most destructive attack on occupying Soviet forces 15 years ago, … He was wounded 16 times in the war that followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. He lost his right foot to a land mine … He laid down his Kalashnikov assault rifle after he and other moujahedeen drove out Soviet forces in 1989, and then the Afghan liberators turned on one another in a relentless civil war. "Up to that time, to have a gun in your hands was a matter of pride because you were defending your country, your homeland, your people," he said. …

Last week, he returned to Peshawar from self-exile … says he is in contact with Pushtun commanders in his homeland, trying to persuade them to break away from the Taliban and join a new coalition pressing for a govt of national unity. It would be chosen by a traditional grand council of tribal chiefs, sitting with exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah as its figurehead. An estimated 40% of Afghans are Pushtun, and as the country's largest ethnic group, they are crucial to the stability of any govt that might replace the Taliban. … As a peacemaker, Haq may be helped by his family ties. His brother Abdul Qadir is a commander with the opposition Northern Alliance, dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks, and a former governor of the eastern province of Nangahar. Their elder brother, Haji Din Mohammed, was a senior commander in Hezb-i-Islami, one who can help twist arms.

In early 1985, midway through the war against the Soviets, he left Afghanistan for a tour of Western capitals that took him to Washington. He was invited to brief President Reagan's national security advisor, Robert McFarlane. The disagreements Haq had with McFarlane and other administration officials, and much of what has happened in Afghanistan since, left him convinced that foreign govts led by the U.S. used Afghans as pawns in the Cold War and didn't care what happened once the Soviets were defeated. It was U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia that sent holy warriors, including Bin Laden, into Afghanistan to fight alongside Afghan moujahedeen, and the U.S. is suffering the consequences for leaving others to clean up the mess, Haq says. "Because of the Russian withdrawal, many people in the U.S. govt got big medals, promotions and early retirement, because they did such a great job," he said bitterly. "But these [foreign] people who they brought to Afghanistan are causing problems in my country. Now for that they are punishing us. How many of the CIA people were fired? None. Now we are paying the price for that."

    To 2 Chicago brothers, Haq was 'great man'
    His vision for Afghanistan attracted private backing
    10.27.01   Marc KaufmanWash.Post
When Abdul Haq and his team came under attack along a high mountain trail yesterday morning, the group scattered and tried to make contact with their base in Pakistan. Chief among those on the other end of the satellite phone was James Ritchie, one of 2 multimillionaire Chicago brothers who have been supporting Haq and his vision for a post-Taliban Afghanistan. The renowned fighter and his 18 men were only lightly armed, Ritchie said from his hotel in Peshawar. They were going into Afghanistan to talk to commanders about joining the anti-Taliban campaign and signing on for a loya jirga, or national gathering, to select a new govt. "He was a great man, a charismatic man who could get things done," said Ritchie, who was in Peshawar to support Haq's efforts. "This guy is a national hero." Ritchie & his brother Joseph, in Chicago, met Haq and embraced him several years ago as they sought to promote former King Mohammed Zahir Shah as a leader who could unite Afghans against the Taliban. The brothers said it was very difficult to get attention for their efforts before 9.11.01. When they sent videotapes about the loya jirga process to all members of Congress last year, James Ritchie said, they received only one response. Abdul Haq had been living in the United Arab Emirates since his wife & child were killed in Peshawar 2 years ago. But he remained active in the former king's efforts and encountered the Ritchie brothers during meetings in Bonn. The brothers thought the loya jirga process needed a boost, and that Haq could provide it. "His remarkable qualities made it look like he could lead the charge to knock off the Taliban," Joseph Ritchie said.

The Ritchie brothers' involvement in Afghanistan dates from their childhood. They grew up in Kabul, where their father taught civil engineering, and where he is buried. Their mother teaches Afghan girls in Pakistan. Joseph Ritchie sold his options trading firm, Chicago Research & Trading Group, for $225 million in 1993 and established the Ritchie Brothers Foundation mainly to work on behalf of Afghanistan. Former presidential national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, who says he wants to help Afghanistan because the U.S. turned its back on the country after the Soviets left in 1989, serves as an adviser. McFarlane's connections allowed him to set up meetings with important administration officials. For instance, McFarlane & Joseph Ritchie met with deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley at the White House late last month to promote the loya jirga idea.
But McFarlane & the Ritchies say that Haq had received no financial or military support from the U.S. govt. Indeed, they said, the Afghan opposition leader felt an urgent need to travel inside Afghanistan and set up operations there because he was accused of receiving American support, although he was not. Because he had neither American nor Pakistani support, Haq had to sneak across the border into Afghanistan, after he first tried to cross officially and Pakistani border guards confiscated Afghan flags he was carrying.

McFarlane said Haq was on his way to discuss a loya jirga with militia commanders and to retrieve arms stored years ago. He said Pakistani authorities do not let armed Afghans leave freely, so the men had few weapons. "He was in a very vulnerable transit phase," McFarlane said. "Unfortunately he was compromised, and the Taliban learned of his presence." His contact with the Ritchies & McFarlane, however, did provide some help. When they were attacked, Haq's cousin, Haji Uddin, called James Ritchie in Peshawar, and Ritchie called McFarlane, who relayed a message to the U.S. military. McFarlane said American planes bombed a convoy going toward Haq but were too late to save him. McFarlane said he met Haq 18 years ago in the White House, when Haq was one of the most successful mujaheddin commanders fighting the Soviets. "I had been reading reports on him for a couple years and knew of his tactical successes," McFarlane said. "Since that time, I've had a huge admiration for him. He was a truly first-rate combat leader." Haq was also known for his candor, sometimes to the point of rudeness. He told a reporter in 1988 that the U.S. "is like a dinosaur. It's a huge animal with a little brain that steps on everybody indiscriminately." Despite his military prowess, he was not a favorite of many American officials. Still, Haq met with President Ronald Reagan in 1985, had his shattered right foot operated on in a Pittsburgh hospital in 1987, and spoke last June at the UN.

Comrades decry U.S. abandonment of guerrilla
10.29.01   Ellen Knickmeyer AP

PESHAWAR, Pakistan   Grizzled comrades-in-arms of slain Afghan guerrilla Abdul Haq gathered at his family's home yesterday to pay their respects and weep over what they saw as their old commander's abandonment by the U.S. Haq ventured back into Afghanistan on a maverick mission to encourage defections among the ruling Taliban. Instead, he was captured despite a last-minute U.S. effort to protect him and executed Friday as a spy. "We all hate America, all of us," said Dad Mohammed, a one-legged Afghan war veteran, wiping tears from his face. "They always want to use us and our people, and then they abandon us." Haq's mission ended early Friday in an Afghan mountain canyon, where Taliban forces ambushed, surrounded and captured him. The Taliban say they executed him & two companions within hours, under a religious edict authorizing death for U.S. spies. After initially saying they would turn over the body of the 43-year-old ex-guerrilla to his family in Pakistan, the Taliban told relatives yesterday that they had buried the body in his home village of Surkhrud, in Taliban territory.

Yesterday, a week to the day after Haq's mission started, relatives & other Afghan exiles across the border in Peshawar mourned his death and vowed to continue the fight. "This does not make us afraid," Haq's older brother, Hajji din Mohammed, told Afghan opposition leaders & others who trickled into the family compound to offer prayers. "We lost our brother, but our war will persevere," din Mohammed said. "We renew our promise to fight for Afghanistan & the people of Afghanistan." Despite the brave words, the death of Haq dealt a major blow to the opposition cause, cowing both the opposition in exile and likely any Taliban thinking of switching sides. While condemning his hanging, one of the leading political figures of the Afghan opposition made a point of repeatedly describing Haq's move as "a solo act." "I told him, 'Don't do it,' " Sayed Ahmad Gailani said. He said he believed he had talked Haq out of his mission after the ex-guerrilla leader described it to him in general terms.
U.S. officials say they neither endorsed nor supported Haq's mission and that they simply wished him good luck. However, the CIA sent a missile-armed drone to protect Haq as he tried to evade the Taliban. The unmanned plane fired & hit a suspected Taliban convoy but failed to save Haq.
    monarch

    Americans meet ex-Afghan king
    Deposed monarch tells 11 U.S. lawmakers he would welcome foreign military help to oust Taliban
    10.1.01   Richard Boudreaux L.A.Times

ROME   Afghanistan's former king, who is trying to assemble a broad coalition of Afghans against the Taliban regime, told visiting U.S. lawmakers Sunday that he would welcome foreign military intervention to help his group take power. Mohammed Zahir Shah won effusive backing for his effort from the 11 members of Congress, some of whom also promised U.S. aid to rebuild Afghanistan if opposition forces overthrow the Taliban and rid the country of terrorists. … Zahir Shah, who introduced a constitutional monarchy during his 40-year reign, has lived in Italy since his 1973 ouster opened the way for decades of conflict in Afghanistan. Now 86, … has urged the convening of a loya jirga, a grand assembly of elders, to unite the country's tribes behind a provisional govt that would replace the Taliban … The govt would run Afghanistan for 2 years then hold democratic elections. …
    Afghan tribal elders: Don't isolate king
    In emergency session, leaders warn against marginalizing Zaher Shah 3.16.02   AP
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan   Angry tribal leaders from across Afghanistan's royalist south warned Saturday of an "extremely strong reaction" if the new central govt tries to isolate the returning Afghan king after 28 years in exile. 300 turbaned elders in an emergency assembly adopted a declaration to be sent to U.N. & U.S. authorities, whom some blamed for reported restrictions on the king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, long expected to fly from Rome, his exile home, to the Afghan capital of Kabul around March 20-23. But public plans remain sketchy even at this late date. Supporters said they have heard from people close to the king that the interim govt in Kabul told Zaher Shah he could not be involved in political activities, interpreted by royalists to mean he could not receive visitors. In addition, the number of family members accompanying him would be limited, according to this report. The southerners also complained that he would be housed in a small, "unworthy" home, rather than the Kabul royal palace. Such preconditions are "undemocratic and unacceptable," the declaration said. "If these reported restrictions are confirmed, the designated sources shall definitely face extremely strong reaction & opposition of our nation," it said

The tribal leaders, assembled on urgent notice from 7 southwestern provinces, issued an invitation for the king to come to Kandahar city, the old royal capital, where Afghans "will have total & free access to meet the father of the nation." Return of the 87-year-old king, driven into exile in 1973 when his cousin staged a coup against the 2 century old Durrani monarchy, was part of the interim political structure negotiated in Germany in December to succeed the Taliban govt ousted by forces led by U.S. in war against the al-Qaida terror network.
In June, the monarch is to convene a traditional tribal assembly, or loya jirga, which will select a transitional govt to rule Afghanistan for 18 months, until elections. Some say the king should be transitional head of state. "These reports say he won't be allowed to take part in political activities. He is coming for a political activity!" Yusuf Pashtun, a meeting participant and top aide to Kandahar provincial Gov. Gul Agha, told a reporter. If the reports are true, he said, "there will be trouble."

The king is very popular among the Durrani tribes of the ethnic Pashtun south, but less so among other Pashtuns farther east, and among other ethnic groups in central & northern Afghanistan. Although the interim govt is headed by a relative of the king, Hamid Karzai, the most powerful posts are held by ethnic Tajik northerners. Pashtun, the governor's aide, would say only that "certain responsible people" apparently were trying to isolate the king. Asked whether they were Afghans or non-Afghans, he replied, "Maybe both." Another royalist activist, Kandahar politician Izzatullah Wasafi, said Washington, the most influential power in Afghanistan today, bore responsibility for any restrictions on the king, even without evidence of a direct U.S. role. "They should not allow it to happen," he told a reporter. Sitting in a large private garden in the midday heat, elder after elder took a microphone Saturday to denounce what they saw as insults to "the father of the nation." "We are our own men, our own nation!" said one. "We run our own country!" Wasafi said the declaration would be sent to the interim govt, U.N. officials, the U.S. Congress & the White House.

    Ex-king says U.S. war is 'stupid & useless'
    3.7.02   AP
ROME   As his hoped-for return to Kabul approaches, Turin daily La Stampa ran Mohammad Zaher Shah comments in Thursday's paper. It is "a stupid & useless war and it would be better if it ended immediately," the 87-year-old monarch, who has lived in Rome since 1973 when he was ousted in a coup, was quoted as saying. "My people have always fought for freedom & democracy," he added, saying the terrorists are "foreigners who come from other parts of Asia … to disturb and destroy my people." The king had said previously he wanted to be back home in time for March 21 spring holiday banned by Taliban regime. In published comments, he declined to give the exact date, but said his return would happen "very soon." "We cannot confirm the exact date because of security concerns," the king's secretary Hamid Sidig told AP Thursday. He added that the date would be announced very soon.

La Stampa ran the king's comments in what it said was an interview conducted Wed. evening at the king's villa. Denying there was any interview, Siddig declined to comment on the assessment of the anti-terror war as being useless. Later, La Stampa said its journalist had gone into the villa as part of an Italian delegation paying a call on the king. The king was not aware that a journalist was among his guests when he made his remarks, La Stampa said. "I'm as happy as I'm sad. I've been so homesick during these endless years!" Zaher Shah was quoted as saying of his return, after almost 30 years in exile. "The joy is for seeing Afghanistan again, the terror is (for the conditions) in which I'll find it: destroyed, with people dead, friends gone." The former king is widely seen as a unifying figure among the country's various ethnic groups.

KABUL, Afghanistan   Former king Mohammad Zaher Shah announced Monday that he wants neither to restore the monarchy nor to be elected head of state, apparently pressured by President Bush's envoy to bow out of the volatile loya jirga political process that will choose Afghanistan's next leader. The move by U.S. and other Western emissaries delayed the long-awaited grand assembly and drew rebukes from democratic watchdogs and the king's supporters as clumsy interference in Afghan affairs and a hindrance to national reconciliation.

Although the swelling ranks of loya jirga delegates were eager to debate how best to rule and rebuild their war- battered country, the convocation was twice delayed at the suggestion of the foreign observers. Bush's envoy, Afghan-born academic Zalmay Khalilzad, said the delays were called after "confusion" arose about the king's role in the transitional government that the weeklong assembly will choose. "We have an interest in what happens in Afghanistan. We want this process to succeed," Khalilzad said, confirming that he had spent hours meeting with Zaher Shah late Sunday and Monday in search of "clarity" about his political ambitions.

Khalilzad announced 2 hours ahead of the former king that frail Zaher Shah had decided against taking any leadership position and was throwing his support behind interim PM Hamid Karzai. He said the loya jirga that was supposed to open Monday morning was postponed after 2 broadcast interviews given by Zaher Shah "caused some consternation & confusion."
"It appears those reports were incorrect, that the former king is not a candidate for any position in the transitional authority and endorses & supports Chairman Karzai's candidacy for presidency," Khalilzad told reporters summoned to the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. envoy also accompanied the silent king & his glum entourage for a terse announcement read by an advisor on Zaher Shah's behalf that he was withdrawing from consideration as head of state.

Zaher Shah has said repeatedly since returning in April from three decades in exile that he would leave it up to the Afghan people to decide whether to restore the monarchy or give him any ceremonial role as father of the nation. The 87-year-old has also indicated that if he were to be brought back to power he would collaborate with Karzai, the charismatic Pushtun who has managed to maintain relative peace and keep ethnic rivalries in check during his six-month tenure.

push for former king
Some Western diplomats here for months cast loya jirga as rubber-stamp to empower Karzai to oversee billions in international reconstruction aid & political institution-building ahead of nationwide spring 2004 elections. But as 1,500-plus loya jirga delegates from throughout Afghanistan began arriving here late last week, it became increasingly apparent many had been urged by constituents to vote Zaher Shah rather than Karzai.
The loya jirga tradition is 1,000 years old and has always been chaotic. The current assembly might have been expected to thrash out some division of powers that could appease both royalists and republicans. There had been much discussion in the lead-up to the convocation of bestowing some symbolic role on the king while vesting executive power in a presidency or prime minister's post to be filled by a more active figure, such as Karzai.

By stepping in ahead of the gathering to secure the king's public assurances that he seeks no office, the U.N. and diplomatic advisors to the loya jirga organizing commission might have confirmed many Afghans' fears that their future is being decided by outsiders. Senior figures in the ousted royal family said Zaher Shah should be free to take up any role Afghans want for him and that the former monarch has been strong-armed into throwing his support behind Karzai. "The role of my father is very important here. The people of Afghanistan want only him," said Mirwais Zaher, one of the monarch's younger sons. "The people want my father to have an important position in which he is in control." He said the power-brokering that has sidelined the former king won't put an end to other family members' desires to serve the people. "No one can stop us from doing something for Afghanistan. It's my right, and no one can stop me."

Even before the maneuvering became public, the delays and the external influence were disgruntling loya jirga delegates. Frontiers and Tribal Affairs Minister Amanullah Zadran told journalists that the Pushtun delegates were threatening to walk out of the forum unless the king was allowed to run for the presidency. Observers from democratic assistance groups, such as Alexander Thier, senior analyst in Kabul for the International Crisis Group, warned that the delegates would see the handling of Zaher Shah as foreign interference.
"The idea that the king is standing down before the loya jirga even begins, that he is abdicating any role, is going to be extremely detrimental inside the tent," Thier said. "It is inexplicable to me why the U.S. government would feel the need to announce this fact before the king and before the prime minister." Speculating that Khalilzad had been warned by Northern Alliance commanders of a military coup if Zaher Shah is elected, Thier warned that the foreign advisors were sending the wrong signal to Afghans by caving in to the law of the gun.
Ethnic Tajiks from the Northern Alliance, which helped U.S. forces overrun the Taliban, now run the defense, interior and foreign ministries. Asked whether appeasing them was preferable to risking armed insurrection, Thier said removing the king from contention was a simpler but short-term solution. "It's always easier when you have only one candidate," he said.

Pushtun resentment
Pushtuns have been resentful of the Northern Alliance domination of the Karzai Cabinet. Allowing the armed minority to drive the king, a Pushtun, out of contention will only intensify that resentment, the analyst said. "People in this region already believe the U.S. hand is everywhere, that foreign hands are everywhere." Khalilzad traveled to the Panjshir Valley home of Foreign Minister Abdullah last week for what he cast as a short vacation. The valley, which was the power base of slain Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masoud, killed by suspected Al Qaeda suicide bombers just before 9.11.01, is also home to other Cabinet members distrusted by southern Afghans, including Interior Minister Younis Qanooni and Defense Minister Mohammed Qassim Fahim.

Northern Alliance figures also flexed their muscle late Sunday when national intelligence chief Mohammed Arif sent armed undercover agents into the loya jirga compound, in violation of regulations that allow only uniformed security troops to carry weapons.

    Afghan wind blows dynasty away ¹
    6.16.02   Lyse Doucet BBC
Kabul   On the day Afghans gathered, a fierce wind blew in from the west force that swept sheets of sand & dust across Kabul. It tore through vast BBC tent, leaving strips of tarpaulin flapping from metal bars. It was so strong it delayed the start of the historic loya jirga. As we huddled for cover just inside a door, Soroush, an Afghan friend, said: "We have a saying here. When a strong wind blows with the dust, the king changes." Bacha gardeshi, they say in Persian. When the elements grew quiet, an old ex-king sped across Kabul in a bullet-proof black limousine with black tinted windows. Zahir Shah was on his way to the loya jirga … The night before, flanked by American diplomats and Afghan politicians, he sat in silence while an Afghan aide read out a statement attributed to him but hurriedly written by others. Sudden announcement shocked & angered his many supporters & sycophants, incl hundreds of delegates attending the loya jirga. But it was, as his closest friends would say, what Zahir Shah wanted all along.

In recent months, as I followed him on his long-awaited return to his homeland, from exile in Rome, I often asked him whether he would like to be a king again, or at least, in power. His answer was always the same, expressed with a tired smile, and a lifting of a frail hand: "It's not something I seek for myself." But there was always that enigmatic last line: "But if my people ask me, I cannot refuse." American special envoy, a man of Afghan origin, told me the king sat in his pyjamas and told him ambitious family members & disgruntled tribesmen were pressuring him to do far more than an 87-year-old man could possibly do. He simply couldn't attend meetings, sign papers, and preside over functions that went long into the night.
There had been a very real possibility Afghans would nominate him to return as head of state or even a king. That caused panic among Afghan politicians & warlords, incl Hamid Karzai. In the corridors of power, it was decided the ambiguity had to end. The former king could no longer fall back on royal platitudes. But the way it was done cast a dark shadow across his house of a 255-year-old Durrani dynasty, with cousins, sons and grandsons who'd grown up in exile. Some had hoped to place at least one foot inside the doors of power with Zahir Shah's name. Thousands of disgruntled tribesmen, his fellow Pashtuns, also looked to him to settle scores.

When the frail ex-king finally took the stage at the opening of the loya jirga, a multitude rose with thunderous applause. His opponents sat firmly in their seats. On that day, his regal bearing seemed to drain from him as he sat, looking sad & depressed a small figure in a massive hall. He told his people he was so glad to be close to them again. But then suddenly when he began to read his speech, the sound was immediately cut on Kabul radio & television, and when his speech finished, the audio reappeared. Zahir Shah had been silenced; it couldn't possibly be a coincidence. A similar break in transmission occurred in April when he made his historic return after 30 years of exile in Rome. The main television news went off the air. One Afghan official who numbered among the former king's most bitter critics admitted enough was enough. Zahir Shah was being humiliated.
He has now been given one title, baba-i- millat-afghan- the father of the Afghan nation. It's a ceremonial role. Even that may be too much for a fading monarch who never ever really liked the business of being a king, and now spends much of his time remembering the past. A few months ago in Rome, I sat with him looking at old photographs, and we came across one which had gone missing. A smile spread across his face as he was taken back to a younger, fitter Zahir Shah who sat with a loyal bearer in the tall grasses of a hill just outside Kabul. They peered in the distance looking for ibex or birds. Zahir Shah looked at peace with himself & the world. The sun was warm and the wind was still.

Khalilzad said he and other diplomatic observers stepped in to help clarify the situation and to urge the Afghans to "get their act together."
Zaher Shah, though a Pushtun, enjoys deep respect across ethnic lines in Afghanistan for the relative peace and prosperity that marked his 40-year reign. He was deposed in 1973 by a jealous cousin while on a trip to Italy and remained there until his return in April. In addition to the controversy over the former king's role, the loya jirga has reportedly seen attempts at packing the assembly with votes for Karzai. Although the ground rules drawn up for the meeting specify the number of delegates should be 1,501, more than 2,000 had shown up by early Monday, said spokesman Abdul Salam Rahimi. More than 1,000 were chosen in district and regional shuras, an Afghan version of the political caucus. But organizers set aside other blocs of seats for intellectuals, government representatives, refugees & emigres.
    loya jirga  
Karzai : give me one more day to form cabinet
6.18.02   VOA News

Karzai asked Loya Jirga for one more day to form his cabinet. Karzai was to announce the cabinet Tuesday for Loya Jirga's approval. Earlier, U.S. special envoy Zalmai Khalilzad said the Loya Jirga must have the final say on the key cabinet posts. He told reporters that under last year's Bonn agreement, the cabinet must be proposed by the president and approved by the Loya Jirga that gathered last week in Kabul to form new govt and lead the country out of 23 years of war.
Mr. Karzai was elected president to rule Afghanistan for 18 months and organize elections. Mr. Karzai has been holding intense discussions over the make-up of his cabinet; and some delegates have complained that he is trying to limit the role of the Loya Jirga. Mr. Karzai's proposal to delay a decision on the make up of the planned national parliament until after the Loya Jirga has angered some delegates. Under the Bonn agreement, members of parliament must also be chosen by the Loya Jirga.

    Karzai wants to select new cabinet
    6.17.02   BBC
According to the Bonn accord signed last year which outlined the course of Afghanistan's political evolution, the loya jirga was supposed to approve key appointments, but the debate on the issue had become bogged down. On Monday, as the meeting entered an unscheduled seventh day, scores of delegates walked out of the morning session when they heard it was to be devoted to speeches by delegates rather than to decision-making. Early in his speech, Mr Karzai said he was aware of delegates receiving death threats which he said were against the loya jirga's spirit and if delegates briefed him privately on these, he would take necessary action.
A vote on setting up a parliament was cancelled late on Sunday in the loya jirga tent in the capital Kabul, where the country's political future is to be decided. Delegates had expected Mr Karzai to come on Monday morning and express his views before a vote on the matter was held. BBC's Kate Clark says this was not an organised walk-out, just scores of delegates leaving individually in frustration at what they see as time-wasting. One delegate told Reuters that fresh fighting could break out if the assembly did not agree on a new govt. "There's no point hanging around listening to boring speeches so we're leaving," delegate Sayed Nimatullah was quoted as saying.

There has been intense haggling between Mr Karzai & delegation leaders, as splits emerge over whether parliamentary deputies should be elected along regional or tribal lines. Another delegate said she would not have bothered to come to Kabul if she'd known the loya jirga would have been allowed so little influence. Our correspondent says everything is on hold in Kabul until Mr Karzai arrives. Until then delegates from across Afghanistan will give unrelated speeches with no voting, no decisions and no structured debate.
Some delegates have been angered by a proposal by Mr Karzai to create a 111-member consultative assembly drawn from loya jirga members. Although he was vague as to the assembly's duties, there was some controversy over suggestions from govt officials that this assembly, rather than the loya jirga itself, would approve cabinet posts. Under UN-brokered power-sharing deal signed Dec. 2001 in Bonn, a majority of delegates must approve Mr Karzai's key appointments and the structure of the new govt. Neither matter has as yet been discussed.

Bonn accord envisages a new parliament being established in direct elections in about 18 months. Karzai is under pressure from fellow Pashtuns, who want him to drop one or more of his key ministers, dominated by Tajiks, to make new govt more representative. Delegates voiced concern about presence of warlords at the loya jirga and fear that many of the ministries could again be filled with men from the armed factions.

Karzai promises probe into secret service threat
6.17.02   AFP

Kabul   Afghan leader Hamid Karzai pledged Monday to probe reports that members of the intelligence service had intimidated Loya Jirga delegates, admitting his job would be on the line if he failed to take action. "I have had reports that security people have threatened Loya Jirga members," he told the grand assembly. "We called the Loya Jirga in order to finish oppression and threats to Afghans. No people should be threatened inside the Loya Jirga. "If anybody has been threatened I am available for him to come to me directly or contact me through friends. If I do not take any measures in this connection you can remove me again," he added. Claims of threats & intimidation have been heard throughout the Loya Jirga, called to select a new transitional govt for Afghanistan, now in its seventh day.

One delegate was forced to flee the country after he was threatened by a leading warlord following a speech from the floor and the wife of another member was raped & killed on Friday, a diplomatic source said on Sunday. EU special representative to Afghanistan Klaus-Peter Klaiber condemned what he called "unacceptable pressures" placed on delegates. Foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah dismissed the claims of threats as no more than "rumours", at a press conference on Sunday.
per Taliban, sharia forbids teaching women to read

    No laughing matter for Afghan women
    6.16.02   E.R.Shipp NY Daily News
… Kandahar school headmistress Malalai Habibulah demanded that women be included in the supposedly inclusive new govt. She stood before the conclave of about 1,600 delegates and said: "We want ministries like the Ministry of Defense, like the Ministry of Health." And what did the men, who make up 90% of the delegates, do? They snickered, Daily News reporter Laura Winter wrote. Habibulah did not back down. Winter wrote: "She shot back: 'It should not be funny to you. If a French woman can become defense minister, why can't an Afghan woman do the same?'" … A leading imam reportedly denounced the presence of women at the loya jirga, saying Islam teaches that they are too dumb & too weak to participate in public life. Their participation, he said, was "a UN imposition." In recognizing that her country had taken a step forward, Masooda Jalal, a physician who secretly operated a school for girls during the oppressive Taliban reign and now works for the UN World Food Pgm, sought the office of president.

Back in 1928, according to the BBC, King Amanullah sought to modernize Afghanistan and, at a loya jirga, asked his Queen Soraya to remove her veil. The delegates rioted. … The minister of women's affairs denounced the council as a "rubber stamp" for U.S. interests. "But the Americans are not so well-acquainted with Afghan society," AP quoted her as saying. "They are backing the groups with the weapons, but it could be a problem for them later." … Afghan-Americans like Long Island woman Arian Aziz active in SARA, Society for Aid to Reconstruct Afghanistan. …

    Female minister 'is Afghan Rushdie'
    6.18.02   Jonathan Steele The Guardian
Powerful Islamic fundamentalists have launched a fierce attack on women's affairs minister Sima Samar, accusing her of blasphemy, labelling her "Afghanistan's Salman Rushdie" and demanding that she be given "appropriate punishment" which, under sharia law, means death. The onslaught on Ms Samar, one of only 2 women ministers in Karzai govt, is the high point so far in a surge of confidence by fundamentalists who have been allowed to dominate the grand tribal council, or loya jirga , in Kabul in the past few days. It appears in the form of a front-page headline & half-page letter from "a reader in Kabul" to the editor of Mujahed (Soldier of God), weekly newspaper published by Jamiat-e-Islami, the party run by the former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Letter, titled "Afghanistan's Salman Rushdie?", claims that Ms Samar told a Canadian newspaper in April: "I don't believe in sharia". Although sharia's relevance to the complexities of modern life is debated, every Muslim is expected to accept its principles. "In Afghanistan holy sharia still rules," the letter adds. "Our people know what punishment awaits anyone who insults Islam & the Prophet ... We ask the judicial authorities to investigate Sima Samar for her insult and prepare the appropriate punishment". Ms Samar reacted to the attack with outward calm yesterday. "They are threatening me. I'm here and it's fine, so what?" she said. …
    Loya Jirga debates after Karzai sets vision
    6.15.02   AFP
Kabul   Afghanistan's Loya Jirga was due to debate the shape of Hamid Karzai's cabinet after the newly elected president laid out his vision for hauling the war-torn country out of the quagmire created by 23 years of conflict. But delegates have shown little inclination to follow the official agenda so far, raising the prospect that the assembly could be extended beyond its scheduled Sunday finish. "If necessary we can extend until Monday," the deputy chairman of the Loya Jirga Commission Azam Dadfar told AFP on Saturday. Karzai's chief advisor Ashraf Ghani said the Loya Jirga was also scheduled to debate the formation of a 111-member national assembly, or parliament, but "these delegates do not take the suggested agenda." Delegates to the grand assembly had been due to consider the "key personnel" of the new transitional authority on Friday but became bogged down over issues such as whether to adopt Islamic Shariah law as the cornerstone of the operations of the new govt.

They adopted a proposal to name the 2 year authority the Islamic Transitional Administration of Afghanistan after heated debate. Dadfar said the agenda for Saturday included the composition of the new govt. The grand assembly is tasked under the terms of December's Bonn agreement to pick the "key personnel" of the transitional govt which will run Afghanistan until full elections in 2004. But it will be left up to delegates to decide which posts they will select, with the freshly empowered Karzai exercising some leverage to shape govt in his own image. The number of cabinet posts is likely to be cut from the present 29 to around 20.
Full make-up of Karzai's cabinet does not have to be announced before June 22, but his chief advisor Ashraf Ghani said, "if the cabinet could be announced in the days ahead before the end of the Loya Jirga that would be an ideal situation." Efforts to limit the speeches by delegates to 5 minutes have proved unsuccessful, proving to the "exception rather than the rule", said Ghani. Key political figures met Karzai Friday at his HQ, with intense horse-trading over the new cabinet thought to have dominated conversation. Earlier Karzai had laid out his priorities for Afghanistan in his time in office. "The objective is to take Afghanistan to a better life," he told a press conference a day after being elected head of state. "The objective is to take Afghanistan out of this quagmire in which it was, warlordism, terrorism, hunger, oppression of the Afghan people. "We should do everything to bring the Afghan people to dignity & the good life that they so very much deserve."

    Brawl, walkouts mar Afghan loya jirga
    6.13.02   CNN
KABUL   Dozens of delegates have walked out of the second day of loya jirga just hours after a brawl broke out outside the assembly. Around 60 to 70 delegates, frustrated over what they said was the lack of a free vote over the country's future, left the 1,500-member meeting Wed. The delegates said they were not being consulted on leaders for a transitional administration, while others accused the faction leaders of intimidation. Despite tight security at the assembly, where delegates are set to select a head of state by Thursday and later on appoint a new govt that will run the country until the summer of 2004, tensions grew outside. Several bodyguards were arrested, after aiming weapons at international security forces guarding the compound, according to a military spokesperson.

German security forces arrested 4 men for pointing AK-47 rifles at them, a German forces spokesman said Wed. The detained men were reportedly bodyguards or aides of Ahmad Wali Masood, top delegate at the meeting. "At 8 this morning at roundabout near the Intercontinental Hotel, one of our German patrol was aimed at by people in camouflaged uniform," said Lt. Colonel Thomas Loebbering, a German forces press spokesman. While there was some "body contact" with the German forces, Loebbering said no shots were fired and no one was hurt. The violence followed a dramatic opening day in which the former king withdrew from any bid for power in the new govt and the former president withdrew his candidacy. Loya jirga, which meets in a giant, air conditioned & carpeted tent, is in accordance with an agreement hammered out among leaders of Afghan factions in Bonn, Germany, late last year, to build a post-Taliban Afghan govt.

Political maneuvering surrounding the loya jirga has left some delegates disillusioned. Many fear intimidation & bribery have ensured interim govt chair Hamid Karzai leads the vote for president. … "This is not a democracy; it is a rubber stamp," current interim women's affairs minister Seema Samar was quoted by AP. Many warlords pressed for Shah to be a candidate, and warned there could be bloodshed if he didn't win. … Only remaining contende, female World Food Program employee Masooda Jalal is not expected to mount a serious challenge …
some votes more equal than others

    New Afghan assembly ends in brawls
    6.15.02   CNN
KABUL   Afghanistan's grand assembly erupted in uproar on Saturday after scuffles broke out among delegates following speeches denouncing Pakistan & supporters of former king Mohammad Zahir Shah. Afghanistan's grand assembly & elected president Hamid Karzai earlier wrangled over govt make-up with mission to heal ethnic wounds and rebuild a war-shattered nation. During meeting that often drifted into individual speeches on a variety of topics, delegates to the loya jirga assembly insist they have the right to approve members of a broadbased govt. But supporters of the 44-year-old, Western-educated Karzai say he must make the final decision.

Karzai, elected in a secret ballot with 85 of the delegates' votes Thursday, has been engaged in intense behind-the-scenes bargaining with leaders of various ethnic groups to forge a multi-ethnic cabinet acceptable to all parties. The new govt will run the country for 18 months before general elections are held.
Loya Jirga chair Ismael Qasimyar eventually resorted to switching off the microphone and pleaded for calm. "Please speak calmly and avoid provocative issues. Try to speak only of the problems of the country," he said, according to Reuters news agency. One deputy launched a scathing assault on neighboring Pakistan for its support of the hardline Taliban, ousted from power last year. Islamabad later switched sides and backed a U.S.-led military campaign to topple the Taliban. "Our nation was submerged in blood for almost a decade because of Pakistan's interference," the delegate said. "Pakistan not only armed its stooges in Afghanistan, but also sent troops to fight against Afghans. We still have hundreds of them in captivity," he added. Afghan leaders have said they hold no grudges against Pakistan and want good relations with all their neighbors.

Another deputy began his speech denouncing the monarchists around Zahir Shah. "Some groups under the name of the former king are trying to contaminate the atmosphere of the Loya Jirga," he said. His comments were cut short and it was not clear which groups he was referring to. At chair's request, former interior minister Yunus Qanuni, an eloquent speaker, made a passionate plea with delegates to avoid causing tension in a country just emerging from years of civil war & Russian occupation. "You have not been elected to cause tension, to raise provocative issues. You have been elected to shape the future of your country, work for national unity. Let's not lose this golden opportunity," he said to repeated applause.

The loya jirga was supposed to convene from Monday until Sunday. But it began a day late and shows little sign of being able to finish on time. Some delegates have complained the process is being unduly influenced by warlords who have created an atmosphere of intimidation. Among the controversial topics some were afraid to speak out on was the role of Islam in a new govt. On Friday, 3 Afghan delegates, all former fighters against the Soviets, urged the loya jirga to include the name of Islam in the next govt, making it the transitional Islamic Afghan govt. Delegates rose to their feet in unison to applaud, reported AP.
Despite the show of unanimity, some dissenters said Islam had been misapplied in the past, a reference to the Taliban's austere brand of religion. Kandahar governor Gul Agha drew jeers when he said: "The Islamic name should be omitted from the govt because in the past it has been misused." His opinion was shared by other delegates who weren't given the microphone, and who complained that ordinary delegates were being sidelined by religious & political leaders.

    Mass walkout at Afghan loya jirga
    Delegates condemn 'boring' speeches, time-wasting
    6.17.02   CNN
KABUL   More than half the delegates to Afghanistan's loya jirga have walked out of the assembly, condemning what they described as "boring" speeches to the grand council and the sidestepping of key issues. Walkout came as Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was due to address the assembly in a bid to cool tempers after nearly a week of debate failed to produce an agreement on the country's new govt. Monday is the assembly's last scheduled day to meet, unless it decides to extend its session again. With several hundred delegates reported to have walked out of the assembly, many complained of deliberate delaying tactics with no discussion over the makeup of a new parliament and the issue of forming a new cabinet.
"There's no point hanging around listening to boring speeches so we're leaving," delegate Sayed Nimatullah told Reuters as he left. "Karzai should be here discussing important issues like the new parliament. This is interference by foreign countries and a violation of the Bonn agreement." Another delegate told reporters that fresh fighting could erupt in the war-torn country if the assembly failed to agree on a new govt. "I am really disappointed with the Loya Jirga," delegate Mullah Abdul Karim said. "Governors & officials are telling people what to say in their speeches. The main issues have not been discussed so far. If it goes on like this, fighting could restart because Karzai does not have the support of the majority of the people," he said.

1,600 delegates attending the Kabul gathering nominated Karzai as president last week, one task the assembly has accomplished. So far, however, they have failed to agree on the format of a legislature to work with the new leader, caught in debate between an assembly based on geography and one based on population. Loya jirga chairman Ismael Qasimyar offered delegates a choice of either 2 representatives for each of the 32 provinces, the initial idea endorsed by the loya jirga commission, or one representative for every 10 of the nearly 1,600 delegates.
Minority ethnic groups from northern Afghanistan support the one representative theory. But the ethnic Pashtuns, who claim to compose 65% of the country's population, said choosing one assembly delegate for every 10 loya jirga delegates would render them voiceless in the legislative branch of a new govt. Pashtuns have advocated the idea of one representative for each of the 381 districts in Afghanistan, saying it is the only fair way to build an assembly. "They want some kind of formula," Gulbadan Habibi, a delegate representing Afghans from U.S. East Coast told AP. "One says, 'OK, if my district's population is 2,000 people and this other one is 500, it's not fair if we have the same representatives'."

Without an independent census having been conducted in Afghanistan in decades, and with confusion among delegates over the instructions, Sunday's session was adjourned after hours of chaotic scenes. Qasimyar has called on Karzai to attend Monday's session to help break the logjam. Karzai has been engaged in intense behind- the-scenes bargaining with leaders of various ethnic groups to forge a multi-ethnic cabinet acceptable to all parties. Parliament, once chosen, is expected to approve the new cabinet, which will run the country for 18 months before general elections are held.
The assembly, entering an unscheduled extra day Monday, is now expected to end on Tuesday, although AP reports that Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah has suggested it might be extended 2 more days.

    Afghan delegates make little progress
    6.17.02   Charles Clover Financial Times
Afghanistan's loya jirga completed its seventh working day Monday having made no progress on key issue of forming a cabinet or a national parliament, and under pressure from its western sponsors to wrap things up. Spent past 4 days deadlocked on just about any issue it debates from the formation of national parliament, to drug abuse, to the amount of arable land in Laghman province. The issue of ministerial appointments has stayed off the agenda. By noon on Monday, two-thirds of the delegates had left the German government-donated tent housing the proceedings. Some described this as a protest, others said they were simply bored.
Farcical atmosphere in the jirga tent was underlined when jirga deputy chairwoman Sima Samar read a note passed to her from one of the delegates over the microphone, barely cracking a smile: "Announcement! A political settlement for Afghanistan has been lost. If found, please submit it to Mr Qasimyar [chairman of the assembly] and it will reach the loya jirga," she said. … Meanwhile, Mohammed Ismail Qasimyar, chairman of the jirga, made it clear that remaining time was limited due to funding constraints. Western donors gave $7.3m to hold the jirga, originally planned to run June 10 to 16. "Please brothers! Speak more quickly, the UN has said there is no money left! We will run out of food and we will have to close the tent," said Mr Qasimyar.
    Loya jirga diary: Day five
    6.15.02   Robin Lustig BBC
Kabul   Much of this morning was taken up by an impassioned debate over whether the new Afghanistan should have the word "Islamic" in its title. Under the Taleban it did. This is not an issue that the loya jirga needs to decide on, but it was one that delegates wanted to discuss, so discuss it they did. I could hardly believe my ears when another delegate suggested the formation of a special commission to investigate the wealth of the country's so-called "regional commanders", better known as warlords. That is not the kind of idea that would have been aired in public a few months ago.
Other speakers called for the setting-up of regional assemblies, to keep an eye on provincial governors. A woman delegate laid out a detailed 20-point plan for incoming govt. Top of the list: disarming of local militias & education for all. Perhaps none of these speeches will make any difference. But to me, the fact that they were made at all looks highly significant. Despite everything they have been through, the many Afghans I have met. remain friendly, open and hospitable.

Embarrassing for the German soldier serving in the ISAF peacekeeping force when his finger slipped on the trigger of his automatic rifle as he was on sentry duty outside the Intercontinental Hotel. He ended up peppering the van belonging to Afghan TV with bullet holes, in full view of the reporters gathered at the loya jirga media ctr. No one was hit.

    Afghan caucus adjourns with complaints of undue pressure
    6.17.02   Pamela Constable Wash.Post
Kabul   With time running short & speeches waxing long, national assembly … abruptly adjourned this afternoon when delegates were unable to agree on rules for shaping & selecting a parliament. During a day of tumultuous debate, angry delegates mobbed the chairman's platform, and radio & TV transmission of the proceedings was suddenly cut off. Officials repeatedly called for order and begged the delegates to stop wasting time, to no avail. …
In interviews outside, some delegates complained of intimidation by govt officials, confusion about constantly changing rules and a pseudo-democratic atmosphere in which numerous parochial or polemical topics were raised while little business got done. "Our expectation was that with the international community involved, this loya jirga would be much more democratic than those in the past, but elected delegates are being pressured and unelected ones are following the govt line," said historian Mohammed Hassan Kakar from eastern Afghanistan.

Economist Syed Massood, member of independent national commission that prepared the assembly, said he & several colleagues almost resigned in protest over the intimidation of delegates by governors & militia leaders. "This puts a question mark over the loya jirga's legitimacy," he said. "There are 1,600 delegates here from all over the country, and no one is listening to their voice. I am really disappointed. We made promises to the people of Afghanistan, and now I don't know how we can look them in the face."
Karzai aides insisted tonight that the assembly had been an open, fair process that had accomplished much despite some delays & confusion. Karzai's aides said today's vote on choosing a temporary parliament was canceled because delegates failed to agree on how to select the members. Instead, they said Karzai was meeting privately with delegates to find a solution and would present it to the loya jirga Monday. "The loya jirga has accomplished something extremely important. It [has] elected the first legitimate ruler by a resounding mandate," said Karzai sr adviser Ashraf Ghani. "Everyone has talked in an atmosphere free of intimidation, free of previous plotting . . . the loya jirga has not been choreographed."

Ghani also dismissed criticism that warlords had been allowed to dominate the assembly, noting that some delegates had made impassioned speeches against them. He said the loya jirga had achieved an impressive "centrist consensus" against violence & ideological extremism. …
U.N. officials said today that they had met with the top militia leaders from the region, … also said Dostum requested today that multinational troops patrolling Kabul be sent to the region.

… "The king remains a factor of discontent in the loya jirga," said Kakar, the historian. "There has been an outpouring of feelings for him, and a feeling that Karzai has abandoned his principles & the king because of pressure from the Northern Alliance and the [Islamic militias]. It seems the power is not with the people but behind the scenes." One delegate said that others had come to him expressing concerns about official retaliation because they had signed a petition calling for the king to be a candidate, and that several said they had received veiled threats of reprisals after the assembly from provincial governors if they did not follow their voting instructions.
Some critics said they believed the loya jirga had been allowed to disintegrate into a babble of opinions in a deliberate effort to derail serious discussion and allow Karzai a free hand.

But other independent observers disagreed, saying that today's debate on how to select a parliamentary-type body had been an important exercise.During the session, loya jirga officials proposed choosing 2 delegates from each province, but numerous speakers objected, saying that there was no accurate census of Afghanistan and that some provinces had far larger populations than others. "This was a meaningful and democratic debate, but then they suddenly canceled the vote," said American observer Alex Thier from nonprofit Intl Crisis Group. With the assembly due to end shortly and only one of its 3 mandated tasks completed, he added, "the chance may evaporate for the loya jirga to comment meaningfully on a govt that is being put together behind the scenes."

    Afghan leaders look to future
    6.11.01   CNN
KABUL   Afghanistan's traditional loya jirga tribal council that will determine the nation's transitional govt, started Tue. after a day's delay. Country's current interim leader is getting support to head a new administration from two key figures. Afghanistan's former king Zaher Shah Monday threw his support behind interim govt chairman Hamid Karzai to lead a transitional govt. Afgh. former president Burhanuddin Rabbani said Tuesday he decided to withdraw his candidacy to lead the govt and support Karzai. But Rabbani will receive influence & power in return for giving up his own candidacy, sources said. He will be able to help decide on future composition of the Cabinet & other key posts. Former king, 87 & frail, officially opened ceremonies, held in a huge tent with 1,500 delegates."In this loya jirga, I ask all the delegates to consider the priorities of the nation & the desires of the people, and to have a good outcome and we should choose the right person to bring us a good future," the former king said. "I open the ceremony of this loya jirga and may God help us."

Karzai said Afghans want peace, national unity, and an end to warlords, some of whom were attending the loya jirga, encompassing all aspects of Afghan society. The loya jirga, which was to start Monday, had been postponed for 24 hours because of logistic & preparation issues, according to a member of the Special Independent Commission organizing the event. Former king's role in the next govt caused the delay. Abdul Salam Rahimi told reporters Monday that the delay was caused by an incomplete final voting list for the council and emphasized that it was not caused by security or political issues.
Many warlords had pressed for Shah to be a candidate, and warned there could be bloodshed if he didn't win. In a statement Monday, the ex-king said he did not want the monarchy restored or to be a candidate for president. While the move appeased the dominant Tajik ethnic group, there was tension inside the loya jirga as some delegates felt their rights had been taken away. An Afghan delegate who uses only one name, Mirwais, told AP news agency, "It is for us to decide what role the king has. If we want or don't want the king, it is for us to decide and then the king can say whether he accepts or not."

… Creation of the loya jirga is in accordance with an agreement hammered out among leaders of Afghan factions in Bonn, Germany, late last year, to build a post-Taliban Afghan govt. Assembly of 1,501 elected & appointed delegates who make up Afghanistan's U.N.-installed interim leadership, led by Karzai, will meet in a large tent in Kabul over coming days to select new govt with representatives of different ethnic groups, tribes and religions. Loya jirga, "grand council," is "a political institution that Afghans have had for centuries," Karzai said in January. "It's a powerful institution that Afghans will listen to."
Perhaps the most significant new participants in the govt are women, who will serve their country for the first time. Women already are among the delegates to the loya jirga. Members of Afghanistan's interim govt say they are committed to changing Taliban rules that forbade women to work, attend school, or even vote. Major challenge of new govt will be representing many fractured ethnic groups, such as the Pashtuns, Shiites, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, which have fought with one another through the years over property & land.

Some hostility among the groups remains, even though those who formed the interim council in Germany last year tried to balance the factions and create a multi-ethnic govt. The loya jirga is scheduled to end June 16. If no decisions have been made by then, a provision allows delegates to extend their session until June 22. That date is final because it marks the end of the 6-month mandate of the Karzai-led interim govt
6.16.02 foto AP

    Key players in the loya jirga ¹
    6.10.02   AP
KABUL   profiles from loya jirga

MOHAMMAD ZAHER SHAH:   87-year-old former king convened the loya jirga. Often called the "grandfather of the nation," many see him as a unifying force. Crowned king in 1933 at age 19 after his father was assassinated, Zaher Shah ruled with a benevolent hand until he was ousted in a coup in 1973 by a cousin while on a trip to Italy. He lived there until returning home in April. During his reign, Afghanistan enjoyed peace and the capital Kabul took on a cosmopolitan flavor. But the countryside remained relatively backward, with literacy reaching barely 15 %

HAMID KARZAI:   Leader of interim govt sworn in 12.20.02 after Taliban's collapse. Karzai won respect of all ethnic groups and is the leading candidate to stay on. He is Pashtun leader whose Popolzai tribe is one of largest in southern Kandahar. Now 44 & married to a doctor, he took over tribal leadership after his father's assassination in Pakistan nearly 3 years ago.

MOHAMMED FAHIM:   defense minister generated controversy by refusing to accept UN agreement to withdraw his militia from Kabul. UN capitulated. 44-year-old ethnic Tajik from northern Panjshir Valley, was member of northern alliance that swept into Kabul after Taliban fled in Nov. 2001. Appt alliance defense chief after suicide bomber killed charismatic military leader Ahmed Shah Massood Sept. 2001. During Soviet invasion, Fahim was in secret police before joining late 1980s Islamic uprising against communists.

YUNUS QANOONI:   interior minister is intellectual in early 40s from Panjshir Valley town of Rokha. During 1992-96 govt of Pres.Rabbani, Qanooni was deputy defense minister, then interior minister. He survived an assassination attempt blamed on a renegade guerrilla leader & PM at time Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. As result, he walks with a cane.

DR. ABDULLAH:   foreign minister is MD in early 40s. Raised in Kabul, was leading spokesman for Massood before assassination. Was also foreign minister under Rabbani.

BURHANUDDIN RABBANI:   former Afghan president & key power-broker, Rabbani's political career has risen & fallen during Afghanistan's long years of conflict. President 1992-96, returned to Kabul in Nov., following Taliban ouster, but relinquished control after Hamid Karzai inducted as interim president Dec. 2001. Ethnic Tajik Rabbani, 62, was founding father of anti-communist Islamist movement from late 1950s, later forming Jamiat-e-Islami group. Rabbani & late Massood launched war against Soviet occupiers in 1979; Massood was a military leader, and Rabbani, still in exile, was the political chief. After the Taliban came to power, they teamed to create northern alliance.

ABDUL RASUL SAYYAF:   Born 1946, Sayyaf led radical Ittehad-e-Islami party bankrolled by Saudi Arabia during 1980s Soviet war. His party recruited thousands of fighters from Arab countries. Sayyaf's party controlled powerful interior ministry during govt that followed end to communist rule in 1992. His party, close ally of slain leader Ahmed Shah Massood, waged fierce assaults on minority Shiite Muslims in Kabul. He fled the capital in 1996 along with rest of govt and was deputy prime minister in Rabbani's govt-in-exile. Known for strong anti-American views.
[ Unmentioned is intelligence head for Massoud & Karzai, M.Arif, whose cowboys were caught invading loya jirga. Per Saudi & Pakistan, NatSec directorate is U.S. funding favorite. ]

gerrymander per Reuters

  •   elected seats from 370 electoral districts.
  •   53 seats for members of interim admin
  •   6 seats for religious personalities
  •   20 seats for credible individuals
  •   51 seats for members of civil society
  •   39 seats for professional & scientific bodies
  •   25 seats for Cuchi nomads
  •   100 seats for refugees
  •   6 seats for internally displaced people
  •   100 seats for women
Women have another 60 reserved seats distributed among those set aside for groups other than electoral dis. & religious personalities.
51 seats provisionally created for flexibility and were all allocated as several electoral districts were established.
    Dressing to rule in Afghanistan
    6.18.02   Sunanda K. Datta-Ray former ed. The Statesman (India) IHT
CALCUTTA   TV coverage of loya jirga in Afghanistan offers sharp contrast to photographs of similar event 9.2.28. Whereas tribal representatives attending the earlier meeting were all buttoned uncomfortably into 3 piece Western business suits, this time they were adorned in a variety of local attire. At the 1928 loya jirga, delegates were required by the king to wear jackets, waistcoats and neckties for the first time in their lives. A man standing next to the monarch, obviously a high-ranking courtier, even sports the cutaway coat & striped trousers that dominated 19th century European chancelleries but are now favored only by Japanese dignitaries. Though there is a scattering of European felt hats above bearded visages in the photograph, not a single floppy turban is to be seen.
newly elected president 6.14.02 A second difference lay in the presence at the 1928 assembly of both King Amanullah, great-uncle of former king Mohammed Zahir Shah who recently returned to Kabul in time for the loya jirga, and his beautiful wife, Queen Soraya. She was first consort of a Muslim monarch to appear in public with her husband. A wispy veil fluttering from the brim of her cloche hat was a token concession to Islamic orthodoxy; otherwise, her short skirts & high-heeled shoes could have graced fashionable European royalty.

The difference between then & now is sartorial but also social & political. One sure sign of progress differentiates the 2 events. Apart from the queen, the 1928 gathering was an all-male affair, even if the males were dressed to kill. Last week, the men wore robes & turbans, with some suits to highlight the diversity of modern life. But plenty of ordinary women sitting among them confirmed that true social change has come to Afghanistan.
In 1928 Afghanistan, like many other Muslim monarchies in the region, was determined to be modern. That meant all the trappings of Western statehood. Only 5 years earlier, Emir Amanullah Khan had himself proclaimed His Majesty the King. He imported teachers, military officers, doctors and architects from Turkey, France and Germany. Anywhere, in fact, but Britain.

Amanullah did much to modernize his country but also spent a lot of effort on image-building. He made European costume compulsory in some districts of Kabul. Iran & Turkey were similarly serious about clothes, especially headgear. The Ottoman emperor Mahmud II banned turbans and brought in the sleek, more modern-looking fez in 1825; a century later Kemal Ataturk made it a crime to wear the fez, which had become a symbol of religious conservatism.
These well-meaning rulers' cardinal error was to confuse modern with Western. Often, their ostentatious Westernization only accentuated the gulf between outward appearance and conditions at home. It is clear today that a sartorial revolution by itself achieves little without education, economic advance and a progressive outlook. One of the most modern of surviving Asian monarchs, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan, has never been seen in anything but his kilt-like national robe, the kho. Similarly, for all his turban & flowing cape, Hamid Karzai is undoubtedly more forward-looking & modern than the official in European court dress in the 1928 grand council.

Kabul   Saturday scuffles broke out among delegates following speeches denouncing Pakistan & supporters of former king Mohammad Zahir Shah. … "Our nation was submerged in blood for almost a decade because of Pakistan's interference," the delegate said. "Pakistan not only armed its stooges in Afghanistan, but also sent troops to fight against Afghans. We still have hundreds of them in captivity," he added. Afghan leaders have said they hold no grudges against Pakistan and want good relations with all their neighbors.
Another deputy began his speech denouncing the monarchists around Zahir Shah. "Some groups under the name of the former king are trying to contaminate the atmosphere of the Loya Jirga," he said. His comments were cut short and it was not clear which groups he was referring to. … On Friday, 3 Afghan delegates, all former fighters against the Soviets, urged the loya jirga to include the name of Islam in the next govt, making it the transitional Islamic Afghan government. Delegates rose to their feet in unison to applaud, reported AP.

Despite the show of unanimity, some dissenters said Islam had been misapplied in the past, reference to the Taliban's austere brand of religion. Kandahar governor Gul Agha drew jeers when he said: "The Islamic name should be omitted from the govt because in the past it has been misused." His opinion was shared by other delegates who weren't given the microphone, and who complained that ordinary delegates were being sidelined by religious & political leaders.

    Karzai to address Afghan loya jirga
    6.17.02   CNN
Kabul   … delegates, tasked with establishing a legislature to work with Karzai, are trying to decide between an assembly based on geography and one based on population. Loya jirga chairman Ismael Qasimyar offered delegates a choice of either 2 representatives for each of the 32 provinces, initial idea endorsed by the loya jirga commission, or one representative for every 10 of the nearly 1,600 delegates.
Minority ethnic groups from northern Afghanistan support one representative. But ethnic Pashtuns, who claim to compose 65% of country's population, said choosing one assembly delegate for every 10 loya jirga delegates would render them voicelss in the legislature. Pashtuns advocated one representative for each of 381 districts in Afghanistan, saying it is the only fair way to build an assembly.
"They want some kind of formula," delegate Gulbadan Habibi representing Afghans from U.S. east coasttold The Associated Press. "One says, 'OK, if my district's population is 2,000 people and this other one is 500, it's not fair if we have the same representatives'."

Without an independent census having been conducted in Afghanistan in decades, and with confusion among delegates over the instructions, Sunday's session was adjourned amid hours of chaotic scenes. "This is a controversial issue," Qasimyar told the delegates. "When an issue of difference of opinion is made my heart shivers." Qasimyar has called on Karzai to attend Monday's session to help break the logjam. Karzai has been engaged in intense behind-the-scenes bargaining with leaders of various ethnic groups to forge multi-ethnic cabinet acceptable to all parties. … Many of his fellow Pashtuns felt Karzai's authority in the interim administration was limited because ethnic Tajiks held key posts of defense, interior and foreign affairs.

Afghan assembly drifts as delegates all stick in oars
6.17.02   Carol J. Williams L.A.Times

KABUL   Delegates bogged down in debate Sunday over what kind of legislature is needed, threatening to drag talks through most of this week even though the key remaining decisions are likely to be made by President-elect Hamid Karzai. Haggling over how to compose a transitional parliament for govt Karzai will head for the next 18 months, and even over whether such a body is needed, frittered away another day of the loya jirga. It was originally scheduled to wind up Sunday after a week of sessions.
Delay & drawn-out deliberations prompted some delegates to complain that their time was being wasted. While speaker after speaker has grabbed the microphone to lament local problems or lambast warlords' residual power, Karzai's outgoing interim govt has been working on vital personnel decisions. Earlier in the day, Afghanistan's fragile security was highlighted by 2 bomb explosions in the southern city of Kandahar that inflicted no casualties but prompted speculation Al Qaeda agents or stragglers from deposed Taliban regime were to blame. The bombs, hidden inside spare tires on 2 gas tanker trucks headed for the U.S. military base outside the city, detonated when the vehicles were still miles from the compound. It was at least the fourth attack aimed at U.S. sites in the region.

Karzai's authority during the 6 month interim govt term expires Saturday and hardly extended beyond Kabul, the capital. A power-sharing deal he reached with a clique of Tajik & Uzbek commanders kept a lid on most fighting, but unless those militia chiefs are included in the new govt, Karzai's tenuous hold on the country could be disastrously weakened. Beholden to the warlords who ousted the Taliban last year and who still control all police & security forces, Karzai has made clear that his next Cabinet will be his decision, not that of the loya jirga. Likewise, his reported preference for a smaller advisory body rather than a parliament was being conveyed to the assembly in behind-the-scenes talks overnight.
Despite hours of discussion about merits of proportional representation versus an equal voice for each province, no vote was taken on whether to form a legislature from among the loya jirga delegates or create a smaller consultative shura that would simply advise Karzai. The session broke off 2 hours early Sunday, third straight day during which none of the assembly's assigned tasks was decided.

… According to UN brokered agreement reached last year, loya jirga was supposed to decide heads of legislative & judicial branches as well. Foreign observers say the accord also suggested that the loya jirga should be involved in the Cabinet selection. But Karzai told reporters day after his election to the presidency that his list of appointments probably wouldn't be ready before the loya jirga adjourned.
After Sunday's debate halted, Karzai's chief advisor, Ashref Ghani, implied that the other decisions are also likely to be made by the new head of state. Ghani described the parliament issue as the last task for the gathering, saying the delegates would be asked for "endorsement of the proposals of the president-elect regarding the structure of the govt." That atmosphere of fait accompli has riled many delegates and left them feeling that the first loya jirga in a quarter-century will disperse with little more to its credit than applying a rubber stamp. "All this is being done to legitimize a scenario already written by the powerful," said delegate Homayoom Asefi.

Foreign Minister Abdullah, one of former Northern Alliance commanders likely to retain power in the new Cabinet, said that the loya jirga has been newly scheduled to wrap up today but that there would be no problem "extending for another day or two." The only real deadline facing Karzai, said govt spokesman Omar Samad, is Saturday's expiration of the interim govt's term. But he suggested that even a prolonged grand assembly would have little role in Cabinet appointments, calling it "improbable & implausible" to seek the judgment of 1,600 people.
fresh start

    Even rivals join in celebrating what they see as a fresh start for the war-torn country.
    6.14.02   CAROL J. WILLIAMS L.A.Times
Kabul   Karzai's selection clearly reflected majority sentiment among those gathered for the weeklong convocation. Even his rivals joined in the spirit of celebration over what they see as the beginning of a new age in their homeland. "He won. That's democracy," said World Food Program female physician Massooda Jalal who came in second with 171 votes. Delegate Mir Mohammed Mahfoz Nadai who works for the govt received 89 votes. Remaining 20 votes were invalidated.
Minutes after the announcement on state-run radio and television, the Islamic faithful were called to prayer, and Koranic chants and the national anthem were broadcast across the nation. Most encouraging sign of social improvement, at least in Kabul: none of the celebratory gunfire that marked the capital's liberation in November and the end of the Ramadan fast and Karzai's inauguration as prime minister a month later. The capital was awash in munitions then. Now, many civilians have been disarmed and an International Security Assistance Force keeps the peace alongside nascent units of the Afghan police & national guard.

… Karzai credited with making impressive moves toward ethnic reconciliation even in brief term as interim prime minister. A Sunni Muslim, he visited a Shiite Muslim mosque in March and assured the religious rivals, "We are all brothers." In his speech accepting his nomination, he even reached out to those swept up by the Taliban excesses, blaming massacres & mistreatment of previous 5 years on foreigners who manipulated Afghans.
… It was unspoken threat of military uprising in the event that the king is selected that is believed to have prompted Bush's envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, to persuade Zaher Shah to bow out of the leadership race. The Afghan-born U.S. envoy has been unapologetic about the counsel he gave the king, insisting that it was neither unsolicited nor strong-armed. "It's a great day for Afghanistan, electing govt rather than govt through coups, military intervention or violence," Khalilzad said after Karzai's victory.

… More than 200 female delegates--disproportionately active & outspoken in comparison with past forums over the last 1,000 years, forced political focus on the issues of peace, security, equality and prosperity and urged the empowerment of leaders untarnished by the past bloodshed. Jalal told the delegates in her nomination speech that Afghan women had suffered enough and "we will no longer be victims." It was her husband, Sayed Jalal, also a delegate, who first proposed that the traditional form of election, a show of hands, be replaced by a secret ballot so that no one had to fear intimidation. "I agree with Mr. Jalal that it should be secret," said Karzai, stepping up to the microphone to put an end to the discussion. "If even one person here fears voting in the open, we must do it in secret," he said.
… govt & organizing committee added several dozen delegates to the traditional 1,500 members plus the king, apparently intent on ensuring the desired outcome.

    Loya jirga: a very Afghan gathering
    6.12.02   Joe Havely CNN
Uniquely Afghan way of debating & resolving issues of national importance, for centuries leaders of tribal- based Central Asian called such gatherings to choose new kings, debate political matters and factional disputes, or adopt new laws & constitutions. … Traditionally meetings made of leaders & representatives from all Afghanistan's ethnic groups, along with other elders nominated by village-level councils known as "shuras". Almost exclusively a male-only affair, the June meeting will for the first time include a sizeable contingent of female delegates. Also represented are large numbers of Afghans living in exile, many lawyers, doctors and other professionals sorely lacking in their homeland.

Although by no means fully democratic, the loya jirga is seen as the fastest & most representative way … With elections ruled out due to continued instability, forum of specially nominated elders & community leaders is seen as best option for producing govt with some nationwide legitimacy & authority.
Although headed by Pashtun Karzai, interim administration in wake of Bonn conference was heavily weighted in favor of Tajiks, ethnic backbone of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. That reflected the military state of affairs in Afghanistan immediately after collapse of Taliban rule. Pashtun representatives to loya jirga made known they look for more equitable balance in new administration.
… endless cups of sweet green tea, intrinsic part of the loya jirga process taking place in a large air- conditioned tent. …

Protests at Afghan debate   Ethnic divisions exposed
1.1.04   Reuters

Kabul   Up to a quarter of the 502 delegates thrashing out a new Afghan constitution refused to vote Thursday, as ethnic divisions threatened to undermine a draft charter backed by U.S. After lengthy delays, men & women from across the country lined up to begin voting inside a giant tent on a Kabul college campus on proposed amendments to the 160-article draft document, incl one giving women more seats in parliament.

The draft outlines a strong presidential system with a limited role for parliament. It would make Islam the official religion but without the Islamic sharia law enforced by the hard-line Taliban regime toppled from power 2 years ago.
Interim leader Hamid Karzai has endorsed the draft, as have supporters in Washington who want to see him run for president in elections in June. Karzai argues that a strong presidency is needed to rebuild the country after 2 decades of civil strife. But his opponents at the constitutional Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, have criticized the process, saying it threatens to create an autocratic political system that sidelines minority groups such as the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.

Karzai is from the largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, and the constitution could return the group to its traditional position at the center of power. Afghanistan's ethnic fault lines have been dangerously exposed by the assembly, Western diplomats warned.
"I am … concerned that there is an ethnic polarization that was unnecessary that could be, if allowed to continue, very damaging," said the EU's envoy to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell. He added he hoped it was a "temporary explosion." Opposition to Karzai has been led by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum & Islamic conservative Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf.

All are linked to the Northern Alliance, faction of mainly Tajiks that helped U.S. topple the Taliban in 2001. None of the 3 leaders was seen casting a ballot on Thursday. Delegates voted on amendments governing presidential powers, whether minority languages would be given national status and if more seats in parliament should be reserved for women & nomads.
They were also deciding whether to give provincial assemblies, not the president, power to propose candidates for governor. Results of the vote were not made public as expected by the end of the day Thursday, and no explanation was given.

Delegates said talks between rival groups would be held on Friday, the Muslim day of rest, with the full assembly reconvening Saturday. The Loya Jirga had been scheduled to last for 10 days, but behind-the-scenes wrangling and protests during sessions inside the tent have dragged the assembly into its 18th day.
Northern Alliance sympathizers took the podium to complain that key proposals agreed by a reconciliation commission prior to voting had been ignored, incl one to hold presidential & parliamentary elections simultaneously. "These events are moving us toward national dissent," warned one delegate, identified only as Yunuzi.

Karzai's opponents appeared to have won one concession. Demands that cabinet members give up dual citizenship could now go to a vote, potentially affecting the highly respected finance & interior ministers. Any sizeable boycott will damage Karzai's credibility within his country, although Western observers believe he has enough support to win the simple majority needed to pass the document.

Tehran   Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was always an unlikely bedfellow for the Iranians. His mujahideen faction, the Hezb-e-Islami, was one of the groups which helped end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But in the free-for-all that followed in the early 1990s, his group of fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Pashtuns clashed violently with other mujahideen factions in an interminable struggle for control of the capital Kabul. The Hezb-e- Islami was blamed for much of the terrible death & destruction of that period, which paved the way for the entry of the Taleban. Like them, Mr Hekmatyar himself enjoyed some support from Pakistan & Saudi Arabia, but his anti-Americanism was so fierce that Pakistanis turned against him and took up the Taleban instead.

So like the other mujahideen factions, Mr Hekmatyar & his men were forced to flee Kabul when the Taleban swept into power in 1996. He ended up being given refuge in Tehran, where he lived a quiet life, waiting for his fortunes to change. Iranians may have regarded him as a potentially useful Pashtun card to have up their sleeve, but he has turned out to be too much of a wild card for them. His vocal opposition both to the Americans and to the new interim authority in Kabul was an embarrassment to Iranian govt, which has thrown its official weight behind the Karzai administration. If Tehran is seeking visible ways of rebutting accusations that it has been meddling in Afghan affairs and undermining the Kabul govt, shutting down Mr Hekmatyar is as good a way of doing that as any.

    CIA 'tried to kill Afghan warlord'
    5.10.02   BBC
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency tried to kill veteran Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar after he allegedly called for the killing of US troops, US defence sources say. A missile was fired from an unmanned Predator spy plane somewhere near Kabul on Monday but missed Mr Hekmatyar, the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told several Western news agencies. CIA refused to comment but a Pakistan-based news agency confirmed a missile attack was carried out on Monday in the Shegal Gorge in Konar Province and said 30 people were wounded.

Whereabouts of Mr Hekmatyar have been a mystery since Iran announced it had expelled him in February after he condemned the US presence in Afghanistan & the Afghan interim govt. "I believe some others were killed in the strike but the target escaped," an unnamed senior US official was quoted by Reuters. According to the US sources, a Hellfire anti-tank missile was used in the attack.
The Afghan Islamic Press said in its report that the Shegal Gorge was controlled by a former ally of Mr Hekmatyar, named as Kashmir Khan. Mr Khan is now a member of the Northern Alliance and a supporter of the interim govt administration, the agency added. An unnamed Bush admin official told the news agency Washington had "serious concerns" regarding Mr Hekmatyar, his views and his possible contacts with the ousted Taleban regime & al-Qaeda militants. U.S. official quoted by the French news agency AFP said Mr Hekmatyar & his radical Hezb-i-Islami party had offered rewards for the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and had attacked forces of the interim govt. "We're not engaged in entering disputes among the various factions on the ground," the official said. "But when people threaten the lives of U.S. troops and encourage people to cause them harm we take that seriously."

Pres. GWBush said this week that the U.S. was prepared to "go after individuals in the theatre of war" if they intended to "do harm to America".

A senior member of Hezb-i-Islami based in Peshawar, Pakistan, confirmed that Mr Hekmatyar is back in Afghanistan. "Hekmatyar is somewhere in Afghanistan but we don't know in which area he is living," Qutbuddin Hilal told AP. The warlord's supporters, who gained notoriety for the bloody siege of Kabul during the post-Soviet civil war, have been accused by interim govt officials of planning a coup. Security forces carried out mass arrests in Kabul in April, saying Hezb-i-Islami was planning bomb attacks.
A spokesman for Mr Hekmatyar denied his involvement but the warlord, who served briefly as Afghan prime minister before the Taleban came to power, has dismissed Hamid Karzai's US-backed administration as a puppet regime. "While foreign troops are present, the interim govt does not have any value or meaning," the warlord told Reuters in an interview in February. "We prefer involvement in internal war rather than occupation by foreigners & foreign troops."

reliquaries violate sharia In Kandahar stands a shrine that is regarded by some as the heart of Afghanistan. Like many buildings in this bombed-out city, the shrine of Kharka Sharif is decorated with the flag of Afghanistan's new govt (which is also the flag of its exiled former king). But a very different flag flew here until just a few weeks ago, and an artifact in this shrine played a role in the rise of the Taliban. The shrine is the home of a cloak that supposedly belonged to the Prophet Mohammed. It's locked away in an ornate building and is almost never viewed by the public. Behind that building stands the tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani, the king whose family built the modern Afghan state starting in the 1700s.
For generations, Afghans have passed down a story about both the cloak and the king. Whether it's precisely true or not, the story is often reprinted in history books, and when I visited the shrine the other day, Afghans repeatedly asked if I had heard the tale. Most American children have heard the fable about George Washington and the cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie.") When they tell about the father of their country, Afghans describe a man who apparently lacked Washington's aversion to shading the truth.

According to the version of the legend that I heard, Ahmad Shah traveled to Bokhara -- once one of the major centers of Islamic scholarship and culture, now a modern city in the former Soviet state of Uzbekistan . There he saw the sacred Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed, and decided to bring it home. He wanted Kandahar to have the artifact, so he asked to "borrow" the cloak from its keepers. The keepers knew he might steal it, and told him he must not take the cloak from Bokhara. So Ahmad Shah pointed to a stone in the ground and made a promise. He said, "I will never take the cloak far away from this stone."
Relieved, the keepers let him take the cloak. Ahmed Shah kept his word, in a sense. He had the stone taken up out of the ground, and had it carried back to Kandahar, along with the cloak, which he never returned. Today, the stone stands on a pedestal near the shrine. The Cloak of the Prophet is normally hidden from public view. It is taken out only for special occasions. The last such occasion came in 1996, as the Taliban seized control of the country.

The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, made what was considered a brilliant propaganda move. He took Mohammed's shroud out of storage and wore it in a public rally, as a way to identify himself with the Prophet, and give himself legitimacy. Looking around the grounds of the shrine, you see what, for all we know, may be part of the legacy of Omar's rule. There are other graves in the ground around the tomb of Ahmed Shah. Some of the graves appear to be fresh.


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