When was burhanuddin rabbani killed
Read: Afghan leader gives up trying to talk to Taliban; blames Pakistan for Rabbani's assassination Pakistan's India today said it was good that the United States recognised the link between the Haqqani network and Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence ISI , both of which have been blamed for the assassination of former Afghan President Burhanudin Rabbani.
Distraught followers bury slain Afghan ex-leader Burhanuddin Rabbani. A surging crowd of mourners on Friday touched and kissed the coffin of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, slain by a suicide bomber claiming to carry a Taliban peace message, and vented at their own government and its efforts to reconcile with the insurgency. Afghan president: Rabbani's killer staged a ruse. The suicide bomber who killed Afghanistan's former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, gained access to him by presenting officials beforehand with an audio recording of a purported Taliban peace offer, President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday.
His death is the latest in a series of setbacks that could pave the way to a deeper civil war. A decade later, in late September , the Taliban exacted their second revenge, and killed Rabbani in a suicide bombing reminiscent of the assassination of that other acclaimed leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud.
Though Rabbani was loved by few, his death is a troubling omen for a fragile Afghan government that, like many of its predecessors in recent history, is buffeted from all sides. Michael Semple, formerly a EU envoy to Afghanistan, called Rabbani's killing 'one of the biggest blows to the peace process so far'. This may be correct, but not for the obvious reasons.
Rabbani was one of the most important Pakistan-backed warlords in the anti-Soviet resistance. After assuming the presidency in , he stood at the centre of a brutal civil war that was to tear apart Kabul and in which his forces were implicated in various atrocities - by the end of , about 10, Afghan civilians died.
Earlier this year, a study by the Peace Research Institute in Oslo and the United States Institute of Peace in Washington found a widespread perception in Afghanistan that the HPC 'is not suited to mediate an intra-Afghan process, nor is it likely to be empowered as a government delegation'. Instead, the deeper significance of this murder may lie in the effect it has upon broader political alignments in Afghanistan.
From , the Taliban's principal adversary was the Northern Alliance, a multi-ethnic array of fighters led by the Panjshir-based Tajik warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud. Those forces dominated the post government of Afghanistan and later formed a political party, the United National Front Afghanistan , led by Rabbani.
They have enjoyed access to highly lucrative patronage networks over the past decade. For this and other reasons, they fear that US withdrawal from Afghanistan in will shift the balance of power toward the Taliban and its backers in Islamabad. They have, therefore, fiercely opposed a political settlement.
The commanders told household staff that they had special messages from the Taliban for Mr Rabbani. The officials added that as guards approached to search the men, Mr Stanakzai shouted: "We know them. They are our own people. As one of the Taliban commanders went to embrace the former president, he detonated explosives concealed in his turban.
Shortly after that we heard an explosion. Everyone started shouting: 'They killed Ustaad Ustaad [a term of respect]'," a member of Mr Rabbani's household said. The second attacker is arrested but he is injured. The driver was arrested before he could flee," intelligence sources told the BBC.
Our correspondent adds that Tuesday's meeting with the Taliban commanders had been kept secret, with some of Mr Rabbani's aides being informed about it just a few hours before it had begun.
His "martyrdom on the eve of the World Peace Day, shows terrorism is spreading in this country despite the year presence of foreign forces under the pretext of establishing peace and security" he added. Afghan conspiracy theorists will no doubt echo these statements. Some doubt whether the US could ever agree to the Taliban demand that all its forces quit Afghan territory, especially in the light of its proximity to rising powers China, Russia and India and that major Washington bugbear, Iran.
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