Author: Barry Bearak
Publication: The New York Times
Date: October 27, 2001
Within a week of making furtive
entry back into Afghanistan, Abdul Haq, a former guerrilla commander who
was seen by some American officials as the potential leader of an anti-Taliban
uprising, was caught and executed, his Taliban captors said today.
"We have killed Abdul Haq and two
others who were with him, based on an edict that declares death to anyone
who assists the United States in its war on the Afghan people," said Abdul
Himat Hannan, a spokesman for the Taliban's information ministry.
Mr. Haq's death is another setback
for the American antiterrorism campaign, which has yet to provide Afghanistan's
disaffected with an adequate alternative.
Details about the summary execution
of Mr. Haq, 43, who lost a foot while fighting the Soviet occupation in
the 1980's, were sketchy and conflicting, just as were the particulars
of any plan that involved him in fomenting a rebellion.
But it seems that Mr. Haq had enough
influence in the United States to spur an American attempt to assist him,
possibly by sending in aircraft and a bombing raid. While surrounded, Mr.
Haq pressed for and received some desperate help from one of his friends
in high places, Robert C. McFarlane, who was national security adviser
under President Reagan.
Mr. Haq was an ethnic Pashtun, as
are most of the radical Islamic Taliban government. He was seen by some
in Washington as someone who might have been able to wrench the support
of tribal elders away from the hard-line Muslim militia. The Bush administration
is still searching for some sort of southern, Pashtun counterpart to the
Northern Alliance, the main opposition group in Afghanistan and one dominated
by ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and others.
Without such a coordinated Pashtun
opposition, it will be harder to oust the Taliban and to achieve the American
aim of installing a stable government representing a broad array of Afghanistan's
factions and ethnic groups.
In the last two months, the Taliban
and Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, have succeeded in killing
both Mr. Haq and Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic military leader of
the Northern Alliance. The Taliban is proving resilient.
Mr. Haq had portrayed himself as
somebody able to lead Pashtun opposition to the Taliban. A man of balding
head and burly physique, he recently returned to the Pakistani city of
Peshawar, near the Afghanistan border, from his exile home in Dubai, where
he was a businessman. He told reporters - often as many of them as he could
find - that he knew dozens of leaders in Afghanistan who were ready to
overthrow the Taliban on his say-so. They were awaiting his first move,
and he was awaiting the right moment, he said.
But after Oct. 7, the day air attacks
on Afghanistan began, his confidence seemed to erode. He said that the
bombing was a terrible mistake, that it was rallying Afghans around the
besieged Taliban. Last Sunday, he secretly crossed the border into Afghanistan.
With him were only 19 comrades,
according to Joseph C. Ritchie, a wealthy American businessman who grew
up in Afghanistan and has since become one of Mr. Haq's patrons.
The group was carrying only a few
automatic weapons, some rifles and a pistol, Mr. Ritchie said in a telephone
interview. They did not want extra burdens to compromise their stealth.
The plan was to sneak in more arms later or find caches already there.
This afternoon, in one of several
exultant pronouncements from the Taliban, its intelligence chief, Qari
Ahmadullah, told the Afghan Islamic Press, a Pakistan-based news service,
that his agents had been watching Mr. Haq's every move since he came to
Peshawar.
"We have set up an elaborate spying
system in every district and province and no opponent can escape that,"
he said. "When Abdul Haq entered Afghanistan, we arrested him."
Other accounts made the capture
seem more chancy. Bakhtar, the Taliban's news agency, said villagers in
the Azra district of Logar Province, only 20 miles west of Pakistan's northwestern
frontier, had tipped off intelligence agents.
Later, Taliban troops cornered Mr.
Haq and the others in a gunfight. It seems that two satellite telephones,
a large amount of American dollars and unspecified documents were taken
from his entourage..
"At the same time Abdul Haq was
captured, one jet and two helicopters came to try to help him, but they
failed," the Taliban agency said, without identifying where those aircraft
came from. The Pentagon did not comment on any attempted rescue of Mr.
Haq.
In yet another version, supplied
by Mr. Hannan of the information ministry, the helicopters fired rockets,
trying to assist the commander in a last-gasp escape at 2:30 a.m.
Those tactics did permit several
Americans accompanying him to evade capture, he said. It was not clear
who those Americans might be or whether they existed. Eight other Afghans
have been taken prisoner, Mr. Hannan said.
Even outside the Taliban, Mr. Haq
had his detractors. He himself often complained that he was not being taken
seriously by the American and Pakistani intelligence agencies, though on
occasion, some of his supporters at least made the pretense that things
were otherwise.
Today, a Pakistani intelligence
agent, declining to be identified, said: "This was not our operation. We
were never privy to the details."
He referred to Mr. Haq as "cocky"
and said he was overly interested in public relations.
Al Santoli, the top defense aide
to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is a leading
supporter in Congress of a post-Taliban coalition government, was similarly
critical. "Abdul Haq was bogus," he said. "He didn't have support of his
peers."
While toppling the Taliban has proved
difficult, so has been the task of forging a unified opposition to replace
them. The so-called Northern Alliance is actually made up of very few allies
and is especially short on ethnic Pashtuns, who make up perhaps 50 percent
of Afghanistan's population. So far, the most promising rallying point
seems to be the former king, 87-year-old Mohammed Zahir Shah, dethroned
in 1973 and living in exile in Rome.
Mr. Haq, like most others leaders
opposing the Taliban, spoke respectfully of the king, suggesting he was
the one person who could bring the fractured nation together.
Mostapha Zahir, the former king's
grandson and chief spokesman, lamented Mr. Haq's death. "Afghanistan has
lost one of its finest and greatest sons, and I and my family have lost
a great friend," he said in Rome.
Rassoul, private secretary to Zahir
Shah, told Agence France-Presse that Mr. Haq "was very close to us" and
that he had gone to Afghanistan "to contact the tribes and to gather them
around a peace plan."
Mr. Haq was a member of the Ahmadzais,
one of the nation's largest tribes. It was natural for him to attempt to
find support in southwest Nangahar Province and northeast Logar Province,
the areas where he had taken his small brigade, according to Daud Arsala,
one of his younger brothers.
"He was entirely on a mission of
peace," he said. "Haq was always on good terms with all the people of Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance, the Taliban, the political parties: he never said
a bad word about anyone."
During the early hours of this evening,
Mr. Arsala and others at the Peshawar headquarters were still holding out
hope that their leader was alive. But by 10 p.m., the confirmation of his
death had come from friends inside Afghanistan.
"The commander was hanged and then
his body was sprayed with bullets," said Yusuf Safi, a family spokesman.
He said the execution had taken place in Rishkor, near Kabul.
According to Mr. Safi, one other
man was executed, whom he identified as Jhagran Hamid, a friend of Mr.
Haq's. Earlier, Taliban sources said two others were put to death: Izzatullah,
a nephew of the commander's, and Haji Doran, another commander from the
campaign against the Soviets. The executions were said to have occurred
shortly after noon.
Afterward, the Afghan Islamic Press
reported, the air waves in the area crackled with congratulations as Taliban
commanders passed along their glad tidings.
