The September 11th attack
Afghan opposition leader dies from bomb injuries
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood died yesterday of injuries suffered in a suicide bombing last weekend, his spokesman said — a major blow to the fractious forces battling the country's Taliban rulers.
Associated Press library photo • April 6, 2001
Massood, 48, died at 10 a.m. in Khodja Bahauddin in the northern Takhar province, the spokesman, Abdullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said in a telephone interview. He was the first person close to Massood in Afghanistan to confirm his death.
Ahmed Shah Massood was the military chief of forces fighting against Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban rulers.
Since the Sept. 9 suicide attack by two men posing as television journalists, there have been conflicting reports about Massood's condition, with some saying he was killed in the attack or died later.
A spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Moscow, Ghulam Sakhi Ghairat, also said yesterday that Massood was dead. The flag at the embassy, one of a few still operated by the opposition's deposed government — was flying at half-staff.
Abdullah accused Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in Tuesday's terrorist onslaught in the United States, of orchestrating the attack on Massood. Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban, a hard-line Islamic militia.
"It was a brutal attack on Massood by terrorists," Abdullah said. "Massood warned the world about the threat of terrorists but they didn't listen to this."
On Thursday, the Afghan opposition forces named Gen. Mohammed Fahim, an active leader of the opposition since 1973, to replace Massood temporarily. Abdullah said Fahim was named as military commander of the opposition.
Massood's death threatens to strengthen the hand of the Taliban by splintering the Afghan opposition, which was held together by his charismatic leadership. The Taliban rule about 95 percent of Afghanistan, with the opposition alliance in control of the remaining 5 percent, mostly in the north.
A veteran guerrilla commander, the dashing Massood was dubbed the "Lion of Panjshir" for his military prowess defending the Panjshir Valley against the former Soviet Union during its decade-long war in Afghanistan. He later held the valley in northern Afghanistan against the Taliban.
Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and Massood rode triumphantly into Kabul on a tank in 1992, the year the pro-Moscow government fell.
Massood was defense minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani until they were thrown out of Kabul in 1996 by invading Taliban troops.
Massood moved quickly to rally warring factions against the Taliban, forming a northern alliance that has fought to prevent the Taliban from gaining full control of Afghanistan. But animosities within the alliance run deep.
The opposition comprises small groups mostly representing ethnic and religious minorities. When it ruled between 1992 and 1996, fighting sparked by internal feuds destroyed vast neighborhoods of Kabul and killed 50,000 people, mostly civilians.
In the attack on Massood, two men posing as journalists detonated a bomb that may have been hidden in a television camera while they interviewed Massood in northern Afghanistan. The blast killed both bombers and a Massood spokesman. Abdullah said one bomber was from Morocco and the other from Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.
Massood's brother, Ahmed Wali, said last week that Massood underwent emergency surgery in Tajikistan to remove shrapnel from his head.
