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Afghan Opposition Chief Fate Uncertain Amid Reports of Death
KABUL, Sept 10 (News Agencies) - Sources in Washington and Moscow said Monday that Afghan opposition chief Ahmad Shah Masood was killed in a bombing in northern Afghanistan, while opposition officials insisted that he was alive, news agencies reported.
A U.S. official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was the government's understanding that Masood had been killed by "individuals who portrayed themselves to be members of the media," according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
However, a State Department spokesman said the United States was unable to confirm the report.
Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency continued to report late Monday that Masood had died.
"Critically wounded, Masood died while being transferred to a hospital at Dushanbe [the Tajik capital]," the agency said, without revealing its sources.
But the Afghan opposition vehemently denied reports that Masood had died of wounds sustained in the bombing in northern Afghanistan the day before.
Masood is "100%" alive and was visited by ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani and Masood aide General Fakhim, his spokesman told AFP late Monday.
"I strongly reject all these reports. This afternoon Professor Rabbani and General Fakhim visited Masood in the hospital. Fakhim assured me by telephone that Masood was in good health and his condition was improving," spokesman Waisuddin Salik said at 1730 GMT.
"He was unconscious only for the first few hours after the incident," he said.
"But later last night he became conscious and now is OK and he can speak. His health situation is improving and very soon he will make an interview with the media," the spokesman said.
"I can assure 100% that he is alive and his health condition is not giving cause for concern."
Masood's condition and whereabouts were impossible to verify independently.
The opposition said Masood was recovering in hospital after an assassination bid by two Arab "suicide bombers" posing as journalists who were allegedly linked to Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, rumored to be hiding in Afghanistan.
"He has sustained minor injuries all over his body but the wounds in his foot are serious," Waisuddin Salik said earlier.
A press statement from Masood's Northern Alliance sent to AFP in Dushanbe said Masood had temporarily handed over military command to General Fakhim.
An official at the Afghan embassy in London said Masood's condition was "improving minute-by-minute" and was "much better than yesterday."
The official, who said he was a press officer, cited as his source an "assistant, a close aide" to Masood.
Masood's relatives also said his condition was not life threatening.
"Masood's health is fine. He is injured but his life is not in danger," said Mohammad Saleh Reghistani, a relative who serves as a diplomat for the government-in-exile in Moscow.
Reghistani said the two Arabs were killed when they exploded a bomb during a meeting on Sunday at Masood's base in northeastern Takhar province, along with Masood's interpreter and personal assistant Assem Suhail, who sometimes acted as his spokesman.
The Afghan ambassador to India, Masood Khalili, and a foreign ministry official were also injured when a video camera apparently exploded as the Arabs conducted an "interview" with Masood.
"They are in the same hospital with Masood in Khwaja Bahauddin [Masood's Takhar base]," Salik said.
But the number two at the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe, Mahayuddin Mehdi, said Masood was still in northern Afghanistan, where his forces control a slice of territory.
Several opposition sources said Masood was receiving treatment in Tajikistan but others in Afghanistan and Dushanbe denied this.
Masood, whose forces are based just across the border in northern Afghanistan, use Tajikistan as a supply base.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Abdullah Abdullah told AFP the ruling Taliban militia, bin Laden and their allies in Pakistan's intelligence agency plotted the assassination bid.
"This was a premeditated plan. They have tried it several times in the past as well but all of them have been thwarted," he said.
"Pakistan's ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], the Taliban and Osama bin Laden appear to be behind this plot."
He said the Arabs, who claimed to represent an agency called Arab News International, were believed to be from Morocco but were traveling on Belgian passports.
They had visited Pakistan and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan before crossing into Masood territory by road several days ago.
The Taliban dismissed the allegations.
"Masood was our enemy on the frontlines but we are not involved in this," Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel told AFP, referring to the opposition commander in the past tense.
"If we had carried out such an attempt on his life, we would have already announced it."
The Taliban, a movement of "Islamic students" from the Pashtun ethnic majority, is also supported by exiled Saudi millionaire bin Laden, who has been indicted by the U.S. for allegedly masterminding two U.S. embassy bombings in 1998.
Arab volunteers, either loyal to bin Laden or convinced that a holy struggle is being fought in Afghanistan, have swelled the Taliban's ranks in increasing numbers since the movement captured Kabul in 1996.
Former defense minister Masood, a 49-year-old ethnic Tajik, leads the loose alliance of opposition forces fighting the Taliban militia.
He is believed to receive significant support from India, Iran and Russia, while neighboring Pakistan backs the Taliban, which controls most of the country.
The veteran commander, who held Soviet forces at bay for 10 years during the 1979-89 occupation, is famous for leading battles from the frontlines and holding the fragile opposition alliance together with deft diplomacy.
Analysts said Monday that Masood's fate could have far-reaching consequences for the civil war in Afghanistan.
The Taliban could take advantage of the opposition commander's absence to launch fresh attacks in the northeast or the Panjshir Valley, Masood's traditional stronghold and support base.
His loss, even if just for a few weeks while he recovers in hospital, would be a major blow to the opposition as the summer fighting season nears its traditionally bloody close.
The resistance has always been a motley alliance of former enemies and turncoats, including warlords from the Uzbek, Hazara and Masood's Tajik ethnic minorities.
But without Masood's leadership, and the contacts he enjoys with allies among the international community, analysts said it could be in danger of crumbling as it has several times before.
Most of the fighting this summer has been in Masood's territory of Takhar province, where the Taliban has launched a series of failed attacks aimed at the strategic Farkhar Valley.
So far, the opposition has held its lines, protecting Badakhshan, the last province under Masood's total control in the far northeast, as well as his traditional stronghold in the Panjshir Valley nearer Kabul.
But without his hands-on leadership and inspiration, it is uncertain whether his rag-tag forces could resist another Taliban thrust before the onset of winter.
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