VARIOUS: AFGHANISTAN'S TALIBAN LEADERS HAVE EXECUTED ABDUL HAQ A TOP LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN EXILE

Record ID: 275480

  • Title: VARIOUS: AFGHANISTAN'S TALIBAN LEADERS HAVE EXECUTED ABDUL HAQ A TOP LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN EXILE
  • Date: 28th October 2001
  • Summary: (W4)UNDISCLOSED LOCATION (FILE - 1981)(REUTERS) FOR DETAILED SHOTLIST SHOTS 1 -4 SEE PROD 11477/01 1. POSTER OF ABDUL HAQ WITH CAPTION SAYING "THE AFGHAN LION - COMMANDER ABDUL HAQ" (W5)PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN (FILE - EARLY OCTOBER 2001) (REUTERS) 2. WIDE OF ABDUL HAQ SEATED FOR INTERVIEW 3. CLOSE-UP OF HAQ 4. (SOU
  • Embargoed: 12th November 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN/ ROME, ITALY AND UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
  • City:
  • Country: Afghanistan Pakistan Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVAACUNKHOR65HLPL7SILR41NCTZ
  • Story Text: Afghanistan's Taliban leaders say they have executed a
    top leader of the opposition in exile, dealing a serious blow
    to United States (U.S.) efforts to build a new coalition to
    rule the country if and when a U.S.-led military onslaught
    achieves victory.

    Afghanistan's ruling Taliban executed veteran
    opposition commander Abdul Haq on Friday (October 26), only
    hours after capturing him on a mission to raise rebellion.

    Soldiers of the hardline Muslim militia seized Haq, a
    burly Pashtun warlord who lost a foot fighting the Soviet
    occupation in the 1980s, as he tried to flee on horseback
    under cover of United States (U.S.) air strikes early on
    Friday.

    "The Taliban have killed Abdul Haq along with two other
    people," an Information Ministry official, Abdul Himat Hanan,
    told Reuters.

    "They were arrested alive and on the basis of the
    instructions of authorities, Abdul Haq for betraying Islam and
    Afghanistan and the Afghan tradition and on the basis of a
    Sharia fatwa calling for death for serving the Americans, were
    killed today around one p.m. in the outskirts of Kabul," he
    said.

    Haq was a leading figure in moves to unite Afghanistan's
    warring opposition groups around the deposed Afghan King Zahir
    Shah to form a broad-based government to take over from the
    Taliban.

    A Taliban spokesman said Taliban forces had been
    surrounding Haq's hiding place for two days, adding that Haq
    had been captured at Azra in Logar province, only 30 km (20
    miles) west of Pakistan's northwestern frontier.

    Haq had called in U.S. air support by the satellite
    telephone he was carrying along with some money, but the
    Taliban managed to capture him when he left his hideout.

    In Peshawar, Haq's brother Haji Mohammad Din Haq gave a
    news conference before the news of his brother's execution.

    "He had no arms and he was not prepared for any battle. He
    and his friends were attacked by the Taliban without any
    provocation," he said.

    Haq's execution blows a hole in the opposition's
    hearts-and-minds strategy of persuading Pashtuns, the main
    ethnic group, to switch allegiance from the Taliban to exile
    groups working to bring back former king Zahir Shah.

    The ex-Afghan king's entourage, expressed shock and horror
    after hearing reports of Haq's execution.

    Ashen-faced advisers to former king Mohammad Zahir Shah
    desperately sought independent confirmation of the Taliban
    announcement that Haq was dead.

    "I hope this news is not correct. We know that he is
    captured and I am in total shock," said Hamid Sidig, a member
    of the ex-king's inner circle.

    "This man went to Afghanistan on a peace mission, not to
    fight. He went to talk with tribal leaders, with our elders,
    he was contacting our people inside Afghanistan. He was an
    Afghan, he was a patriot," Sidig said.

    One of the main figures involved in talks amongst the
    Afghan factions is Haq's cousin Hedayat Amin Arsala.

    "He was there of course not as a person who would go and
    start fighting, he went there to talk to people. To talk about
    the peace initiative of His Majesty, the former King," Arsala
    said in an interview before the news of Haq's execution.

    Zahir Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since being
    ousted from the throne in 1973, is seeking to draw
    Afghanistan's varied warring factions together in a
    broad-based government of national unity to replace the
    Taliban.

    Haq recently visited Rome to meet the ex-king and fully
    endorsed his plan, giving the project much-needed impetus.

    Following the reports of the execution, the former king's
    youngest son Mir Wais Zahir arrived at Arsala's hotel to drive
    him to the airport.


    (if/rb)

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