Afghans hold man tied to top negotiator's assassination | ||
Compiled by our staff writer
Afghan officials have said that they had arrested a man connected to the Taliban militants who sent a suicide bomber to kill the leader of Afghanistan’s peace process.
Few details were released about the suspect in the killing, Hamidullah Akhund, or the circumstances of the arrest. Sifatullah Safi, a government spokesman, said only that Mr. Akhund was detained “somewhere in Kabul in the past days” and was being investigated by Afghan intelligence agents. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and his government have come under intense pressure from political rivals and the Afghan public to arrest whoever was responsible for the plot to assassinate Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and the head of the High Peace Council. Mr. Rabbani’s death was a severe blow to the government’s struggle to negotiate peace with the Taliban. It also threatens to open fresh rifts among the country’s ethnic groups. The killer posed as a Taliban emissary carrying conciliatory messages. He was escorted into Mr. Rabbani’s heavily guarded home and then set off explosives hidden in his turban as he greeted Mr. Rabbani. Since then, Afghan officials have revealed fragments of a coordinated plot that led the killer, identified as Mullah Esmatullah, toward Mr. Rabbani. They said Mr. Akhund was a critical interlocutor between the peace council and Taliban leaders in Quetta, Pakistan, near the Afghan border. Beginning four months ago, Mr. Akhund traveled to Kabul twice to meet with Mr. Rabbani and another member of the High Peace Council, Masoom Stanekzai, according to an account given at a news conference by Ramatullah Wahidyar, a former Taliban member who now serves on the council. Mr. Akhund recorded an audio message from Mr. Rabbani to the Taliban, which he promised to deliver, and passed along reports of his progress and conversations with high-ranking Taliban leaders, Mr. Wahidyar said. He said, Mr. Akhund called with news of what seemed like a breakthrough: the Quetta group was ready to talk to the Afghan government, and had an important message to send. Mr. Akhund said he could not go to Kabul personally, but would send a man he trusted, Mr. Wahidyar said. The substitute turned out to be the bomber. | ||
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