Taliban bury body of executed leader
Taliban leaders threw the hanged corpse of an Afghan opposition leader into a hasty grave in Taliban territory today, leaving Afghanistan’s opposition in exile to mourn - and vow revenge - without him.
‘‘We lost our brother, but our war will persevere,’’ Hajji din Mohammed, brother of the executed Abdul Haq, told Afghan opposition leaders and other mourners in a simple prayer service without the body.
‘‘This does not make us afraid,’’ din Mohammed declared of Haq’s brutal end. ‘‘We renew our promise to fight for Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan.’’
Afghan guerrilla veterans gathered outside the gates of the family home in Peshawar, in northern Pakistan across the border from Afghanistan.
Taliban forces hanged Haq Friday within hours of capturing him, ending what was widely seen as a maverick mission by the former Afghan guerrilla leader into the heart of Taliban-held central Afghanistan.
He was trying to rally Afghan tribal leaders and others to a new government to be organised under the chairmanship of the deposed king, Mohammad Zaher Shah.
Taliban officials initially told the family they would hand over the body today for burial in Pakistan.
But when they went to retrieve the body, they were told the Taliban themselves had buried it in Haq’s eastern home village of Surkhrud, Haq aide Abdul Rahim Zalmi said.
Family members would try to persuade Taliban officials to exhume the body for burial in Pakistan, Zalmi said.
In the meantime, plans for a large, community service were cancelled.
Unlike most northern-based opposition figures, who are members of Afghanistan’s ethnic Uzbek and Tajik minorities, Haq was a Pashtun, like most Taliban. The Pashtuns are the predominate ethnic group in Afghanistan.
Haq also commanded wide respect as a war hero, even among many former comrades in the Taliban. Haq had been a leading commander in the Afghan fight against the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, losing a foot to a Soviet mine.
US officials say Haq’s mission had no direct support or endorsement from them, although they acknowledge calling in airstrikes Friday to try - too late - to save him when he was trapped by Taliban fighters.
The United States had been hoping for an Afghan opposition figure to emerge as a strong rallying point for Afghan anti-Taliban sentiment. The Taliban have yet to see any major defections during the three-week-old US-led military campaign, however.
Dad Mohammed, who fought alongside Haq in the war against the Soviets until he himself lost a leg to a Soviet mine, said Haq had told him in their last meeting weeks ago to be ready - his commander might be calling on him again, for a new mission in Afghanistan.
