 Gunmen in the southern city of Kandahar killed a former Taliban leader on Saturday who had repudiated the extremist movement in recent years, siding instead with the U.S. presence and Afghanistan's move toward democracy. Mohammed Khaksar, the Taliban's former intelligence chief, was shot in the chest, neck and head by two gunmen on a motorbike while he was carrying groceries home from a market around 4 p.m., according to his brother and the Kandahar police chief. He died instantly.
| "He's dead, Jim! No need for Dr. Quincy!" |
Mohammed Khaksar, the Taliban's former intelligence chief, secretly contacted the United States in 1999 and offered to help confront the movement and al Qaeda.
| I'm surprised they didn't get him earlier. He was the first major Taliban figure to come over to our side when Kabul fell... |
The incident was the latest in a string of brazen attacks that continue to haunt the country four years after the Taliban was ousted from power. In recent weeks, a teacher was beheaded and numerous other Afghans have been killed in suicide attacks. The Taliban, whose members are waging an insurgency against international forces and the new democratically elected government, asserted responsibility for Khaksar's killing. "We were after him for a long time and found the opportunity to kill him today," the organization's purported spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said in a satellite telephone call to the Reuters news agency.
| I'd guess the call originated in Pakland, of course... |
Yousuf told the Associated Press that Khaksar was "a traitor to our cause."
| "We dunnit, and we're glad we dunnit!" |
But Khaksar's brother said it was too early to assign blame. "We don't know exactly who has killed our brother," Abdullah Nazik said. "Only God knows who has done this."| Well, God and whoever did it ... |
Khaksar, who was in his mid-forties and had five children, was the Taliban's intelligence chief, and later its deputy interior minister. He was a key player in the movement as it swept to power in the mid-1990s, and at one time he was a close friend of Taliban leader Mohammad Omar. But he became disenchanted with the increased role of al Qaeda in the country's affairs. In 1999, he had said, he secretly reached out to the United States and offered to help confront the Taliban and the terrorist organization that backed it. Khaksar also became an informant for the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban militia group. Two years later, he defected from the Taliban within weeks of the movement's retreat from Kabul, publicly aligning himself with Northern Alliance forces that had taken the capital with U.S. support. In numerous interviews with Western media outlets after his defection, Khaksar said he believed the Taliban had been co-opted by al Qaeda. "Al Qaeda was very important for the Taliban because they had so much money," Khaksar said in an interview with The Washington Post in November 2001. "They gave a lot of money. And the Taliban trusted them."
| Money, guns and ammo, just too seductive for the Taliban to resist. |
| The Taliban are a reflection of Waziristan, where the same things are going on now. |
Khaksar also explained how Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of al Qaeda, would personally distribute funds to Taliban leaders he wanted to control. "He had money in his pocket," Khaksar said. "Any time he wanted, he would just pull it out and give it to them."
Khaksar ran in parliamentary elections in September but fell short in his bid to represent Kandahar. He had recently told the Associated Press that Taliban fighters were threatening his life.
| I'm sure they've been threatening all along. |
U.S. and Afghan authorities condemned his killing. "Anyone who is killing the people who are supporting the democratization process and the reconstruction process, they are the enemies of Afghanistan," said Afghanistan's national security adviser, Zalmai Rassoul. "And that is the way they are perceived by the Afghan people."
| But the Afghan people haven't been gunning a lot of them down, have they? |
"Tragic events such as this only solidify our resolve that we must eradicate terrorism now," said Col. James Yonts, the U.S. military spokesman in Kabul. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Afghan families of those who have been lost in this war against terrorism." The Afghan government has frequently appealed to Taliban members to disavow their allegiance to the movement and begin working within the country's fledgling democratic system. But Khaksar's death underscored the risk involved at a time when insurgents continue to operate with impunity in many areas.
| To whit, the Pashtun areas along the Pak border that are indistinguishable from Waziristan. |
| Time for that fence and moat with the alligators. |
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