M A I N   N E W S

Taliban execute Pashtoon commander

Kabul/Islamabad, October 26
Former Afghan resistance commander Abdul Haq was today executed near Kabul after his capture, a Taliban spokesman said.

“He was shot with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle around 1 pm (1.30 pm IST),” Abdul Hanan Hemat, head of the Taliban’s Bakhter information agency, said.

Hemat said two other persons who were detained with Abdul Haq, a hero of Afghan resistance war against the Soviet occupation from 1979-89, were executed with him.

The execution was carried out in the outskirts of Kabul, the official said.

Abdul Haq was detained in Afghanistan on Friday. He was reportedly on a mission to establish support for an uprising against the Taliban.

Hemat said Abdul Haq and the two others were accused of spreading US propaganda and “trying to encourage people to rebel.”

“Based on a ulema warrant which calls for the death penalty for anyone spying for the USA, they were shot dead,” the official said.

Earlier, US-backed effort to open a second front of ground attacks by anti-Taliban Afghan forces today suffered a setback with the capture of the prominent Pashtoon commander by the militia, who also foiled a US attempt to rescue him.

US helicopters went on a bombing mission in a bid to rescue Abdul Haq, who entered Afghanistan from Pakistan on October 21 with hundreds of well-armed supporters, Afghan Islamic Press news agency quoting a Taliban spokesman in Jalalabad reported.

But Abdul Haq and four associates were caught at Azro in Logar province, the spokesman said.

Abdul Haq was to mount an offensive against the Taliban in eastern Nangrahar province. He had headed for the Spingar mountains north of Jalalabad which divides Afghanistan’s Pakita and Nangrahar provinces.

Fortythree-year-old Abdul Haq was previously commander of the Kabul region during and after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Abdul Haq, who later went to Dubai and opened a business enterprise of his own, returned to Pakistan this month at the instance of the USA to organise uprising and armed opposition against the Taliban, Pakistani daily The Dawn said yesterday.

Meanwhile, armed tribesmen blocked the mountainous Karakoram highway linking Pakistan and China today in protest against Islamabad’s support for the US offensive against the Taliban.

“They have blocked the highway to express their point of view,” a senior Pakistani Government official said.

Residents said members of a hardline Islamic group had set up roadblocks and staged sit-ins at several places along the highway whose spectacular scenery attracted thousands of tourists. Agencies