Erstwhile Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani murdered by Taliban

[Saddle Bronc 124]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14985779

(edit: scandal mentioned this--incorrectly, as Afghanistan and its southern neighbour are part of the South Asian Sub-continent, not the Muddle East--in his "News from Muddle East thread)

Afghan peace council head Rabbani killed in attack

2011/09/20 15:17 ET

The chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed with several other people in a bomb attack in Kabul, officials say.

Mr Rabbani was killed at his home by a suicide attacker who officials believe had concealed a bomb in his turban.

He was meeting members of the Taliban at the time. The council leads Afghan efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.

Mr Rabbani is a former president of Afghanistan and also led the main political opposition in the country.

A senior adviser to the peace council, Masoom Stanakzai, is also thought to have been seriously wounded in the attack.

On hearing the news Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided to cut short his visit to the US but briefly met President Barack Obama, who condemned the killing as a "tragic loss". Both men reinforced their determination to continue the quest for peace.

President Karzai said: "This is a sad day for us in Afghanistan but a day of unity and day of continuity for our efforts."

Abdullah Abdullah, the leader of the opposition in the Afghan parliament, said Mr Rabbani's killing was "a big loss for all the people of Afghanistan", describing the former president as a man who "strove until his last breath to bring peace".

Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) condemned the attack, with Isaf commander Gen John R Allen saying that "the face of the peace initiative has been attacked".

'Special message'

Mr Rabbani's residence is in a prosperous district of Kabul, on the edge of a high security area close to the US embassy and the district where the Taliban launched a 20-hour attack last week, leaving 25 dead.

The attack is likely to fuel concerns over security in the capital. Security forces have closed off a number of streets in the district and the police are out in force, reports say.

Speaking to the BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul, counter-terrorism officials described the sequence of events leading up to the killing.

They said two Taliban commanders had arrived with Mr Stanakzai in a red Corolla to meet Mr Rabbani.

The commanders told household staff that they had special messages from the Taliban for Mr Rabbani.

The officials added that as guards approached to search the men, Mr Stanakzai shouted: "We know them. They are our own people."

As one of the Taliban commanders went to embrace the former president, he detonated explosives concealed in his turban.

"No-one was checked. Shortly after that we heard an explosion. Everyone started shouting: 'They killed Ustaad Ustaad [a term of respect]'," a member of Mr Rabbani's household said.

''One of the attackers' heads is missing. The second attacker is arrested but he is injured. The driver was arrested before he could flee," intelligence sources told the BBC.

Our correspondent adds that Tuesday's meeting with the Taliban commanders had been kept secret, with some of Mr Rabbani's aides being informed about it just a few hours before it had begun.

He says Mr Rabbani had returned to Afghanistan from abroad a few days ago specifically for the meeting.

When the High Peace Council was set up in October 2010, Mr Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace.

But many members of the council are former warlords who spent years fighting the Taliban and their inclusion led to doubts as to whether it could succeed in its mission.

Mr Rabbani was ousted as president by the Taliban in 1996. After that he became the nominal head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, made of mostly non-Pashtun ethnic groups.

When they swept back into Kabul, backed by US forces, and toppled the Taliban in 2001, he was still recognised by the UN as the official president of Afghanistan.

Series of assassinations

But he was a controversial figure who had many enemies, including the Taliban, the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul says. Many were surprised when Mr Rabbani was put in charge of peace talks.

In the 1970s it was Mr Rabbani who founded the parties that ended up becoming the Afghan mujahideen who took on the Soviets, and many blame him and his friends for the death and destruction of the civil war days.

Although people will mourn his violent death, there are also many who will celebrate it, our correspondent adds.

However, analysts say, his death will not necessarily prevent peace talks from continuing.

The killing is the latest in a series of assassinations of senior politicians and security commanders across the country.

In July, President Karzai's half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at his home in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, by his own head of security. Two months earlier, Gen Daud Daud, the top police commander in northern Afghanistan was killed in a suicide bomb attack.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of these killings.

[scandal 951]

(edit: scandal mentioned this--incorrectly, as Afghanistan and its southern neighbour are part of the South Asian Sub-continent, not the Muddle East--in his "News from Muddle East thread)

Yes, I did include Afghanistan in the Middle East, and yes, you are of course technically correct that it is not considered geographically in the Middle East. Nonetheless, from the perspective of regional geopolitics and strategic concerns, Afghanistan and Pakistan figure very much into the ongoing story of the Islamic world. From a military theater point of view, US CENTCOM certainly has Afghanistan as part of its purview. On that basis, I ask you to indulge my literary license for including it in the "greater" Middle East.

That said, my comments in the earlier thread stand. It feels hopeless when Taliban madmen see a benefit in killing a man like this.

Back to topic ...

Why does finding peace in that part of the world feel so hopeless?

Why would a man like this be a target of violence?

A pious man, a religious man of faith, a man of peace, a statesman who was pursuing a better future for his countrymen.

Who would want to end the life of such a man?

Why would a society tolerate extremists who do such things in their midst? Sanction them, fund them, harbor them?

Where is the tolerance -- never mind between Christian and Muslim, Muslim and Jew, Arab and Israeli, Afghan and American --- never mind that --- where is the tolerance for different political points of view between Muslim countrymen in the same nation?? I am despondent when I see such senseless things.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/story/2011-09-20/afghan-former-president-slain/50477270/1

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Yes, I did include Afghanistan in the Middle East, and yes, you are of course technically correct that it is not considered geographically in the Middle East. Nonetheless, from the perspective of regional geopolitics and strategic concerns, Afghanistan and Pakistan figure very much into the ongoing story of the Islamic world. From a military theater point of view, US CENTCOM certainly has Afghanistan as part of its purview. On that basis, I ask you to indulge my literary license for including it in the "greater" Middle East.

So long as you also include the rest of the Sub-continent, ok.

That said, my comments in the earlier thread stand. It feels hopeless when Taliban madmen see a benefit in killing a man like this.

10,000,000-percent agreed on that score!

[slim 1,530]

That said, my comments in the earlier thread stand. It feels hopeless when Taliban madmen see a benefit in killing a man like this.

It makes perfect sense though. As long as Karzai's crooked government is in place the Taliban can reign freely in the provinces.

I'm not sure why we're still in Afghanistan. We went with one purpose and that mission has been completed. Train the locals and GTFO. Worked fine in Iraq. Shouldn't be a problem in the 'stan and, quite frankly, even if it is... well, it's not our problem.

[Captain Oates 911]

It makes perfect sense though. As long as Karzai's crooked government is in place the Taliban can reign freely in the provinces.

I'm not sure why we're still in Afghanistan. We went with one purpose and that mission has been completed. Train the locals and GTFO. Worked fine in Iraq. Shouldn't be a problem in the 'stan and, quite frankly, even if it is... well, it's not our problem.

We have lost in Afghanistan and there is no shame in it because it never was winnable.

Iraq isn't over by a long chalk - they are just waiting for the 50,000 US troops (oops - advisers) to leave so they can kill each other as usual.

The Kurds who aren't living in council houses in England will start things with the Turks and Iraqis and off we will go again.

AS the BBC reported a few years ago 'The Turds are massing on the Kurkish border'

[slim 1,530]

In war, no one wins.

[Captain Oates 911]

In war, no one wins.

Except people who own United Technologies stocks and have an excuse to stay out of the military (me)

[slim 1,530]

Except people who own United Technologies stocks and have an excuse to stay out of the military (me)

But do you really?

Are your earnings off that stock outpacing taxes?

[Captain Oates 911]

But do you really?

Are your earnings off that stock outpacing taxes?

Taxes are incredibly low in the US...

I was paying $140 tax every time I bought a stock in the UK. They call it stamp duty

Then you pay value added tax on the commission !

US personal taxes are the lowest they have been for very many decades

The 'get outs' on capital taxes are really wide open so I can create losses and knock out my other income to some extent and my capital gains totally

I used to go on investing seminars in the UK where people drooled at the idea of living in the US because of the tiny taxation

If somebody with money wants to have low taxes and to hell with poor people, then the US is the place

Unfortunately I am with Warren Buffet in that I have a conscience and I want sick people to be treated without losing their houses

People in the US can be sold the right wing stuff because they have no idea how it is in other countries - the US is GREAT for people with money and wage-slavery for the poor with the tiniest safety net in the developed world

There is a lot I like and a lot I don't like about the US, but the low taxes swung it for me to move here

The UK death tax is 40% on anything over about £340k and a lot of people have houses worth that - so all their investments and cash are taxed at 40% - in the US it is taxed at zero because the US is all about the rich.

Everything is for peanuts - houses/cars/gasoline and insignificant tax so how the right wing are selling all this stuff about big government I don't know - perhaps the low spending on schools produces people who know nothing of the world and are open to believe all that stuff

[slim 1,530]

in the UK. They call it stamp duty

I've heard of that!