Tehran, Sept 14, IRNA -- The legendary leader of anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance Forces in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Masood, has succumbed to
the injuries he sustained in a suicide bomb attack last Sunday,
reliable Afghan sources confirmed Friday.
They told IRNA that Masood had been seriously wounded during the
attempt on his life on September 9 and died Friday after a few days
of struggling between life and death.
On Thursday, a former Afghan warlord told the English-language
Iran News that reports that Afghan Masood is still alive following a
suicide bomb attack are false.
"Masood is indeed dead but his associates and comrades are giving
false accounts of his physical state in order to keep up the spirits
of the Northern Alliance fighters", Gulbuddin Hekmatyar told Iran
News.
The 49-year-old ethnic Tajik, the chief military obstacle
to the hardline Taliban's conquest of all of Afghanistan, had been hit
by shrapnel from a bomb detonated by two Arabs posing as journalists,
his aides said. His intelligence chief General Mohammad Fahim had been
named as his temporary replacement.
Masood, who was a distinguished guerrilla commander during the
Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989, has long been seen as the last
bulwark against full Taliban control of Afghanistan.
Masood has been among pioneers of Jihad and struggle in
Afghanistan, playing an effective and active role on all the
scenes of struggle and jihad in the country.
He has been among advocates of peace, negotiations and respect
for the rights of all Afghans.
Iran had strongly condemned the assassination attempt on Ahmad
Shah Masood, saying, "The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns
any kind of terroristic moves and totally rejects such attempts which
complicate the situation in Afghanistan."
Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan share frontier with Afghanistan,
which has been ravaged by a relentless civil war between the ruling
Taliban and northern alliance forces.
Iran still recognizes ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose
forces were driven by the Taliban from the capital Kabul in 1996.
Ahmad Shah Masood laid to rest in Panjsher
Islamabad, Sept. 15, IRNA -- Afghan sources in Pakistan on Saturday
said that commander Ahmad Shah Masood was laid to rest in Panjsher
valley of Parwan province, north of Kabul.
Masood received fatal injuries when subjected to a bomb attack in
Khwaja Bahauddin district of Takhar province earlier this week.
There were conflicting reports about his health and life.
However, the veteran Afghan commander's aides later confirmed that
his health was unstable.
... Payvand News - 9/15/01 ... --
