Taliban offshoot targets
peacemakers By Ihsanullah Tipu
Mehsud
The assassination of former Afghan
President and Afghan High Peace Council chief
Burhanuddin Rabbani last year was seen as a severe
setback to reconciliatory efforts with the
Taliban. In a video interview seen by Asia Times
Online, a commander from radical new Afghan
Taliban faction the Mullah Dadullah Front (MDF)
confirms his group's responsibility for the
attack, while vowing to kill any other "local
puppets" who engage in peace talks with the
Western invaders.
Rabbani was killed on
Sept 20, 2011 when a suicide bomber disguised as
Taliban peace emissary exploded a bomb hidden in
his turban while embracing him at his home in
Kabul. At the time of the assassination, Rabbani,
was heading Afghanistan's High Peace Council
(HPC), a body set up by the Hamid Karzai
administration with the aim of negotiating an end
to the decade-long Taliban insurgency that has
ravaged Afghanistan.
In a video interview
with MDF militant commander Zubair Hunar
Khurrasani, obtained
exclusively for Asia Times Online, the insurgent
says his group killed Rabbani for helping the
Americans orchestrate the fall of the Taliban in
2001. However, in the footage, taken along the
Afghan-Pakistan border, Khurrasani also says the
Taliban had long wanted to kill Rabbani as he was
associated with the Northern Alliance.
"We
had been fighting against Burhanuddin Rabbani long
before the US invasion. He was part of the
Northern Alliance. The fall of Islamic Emirate
happened due to the help provided by Rabbani and
his fighters. This time, we have killed Rabbani."
the commander said. He did not provide the details
about the identity of the suicide bomber who
assassinated Rabbani.
The MDF is a new
insurgent group named after the late Taliban
commander Mullah Dadullah, who was killed in
Helmand province in 2007 by a joint US-UK Special
Forces operation. It is believed Mullah Dadullah
was killed following a tip-off by other Taliban
who resented his defiant attitude towards the
Taliban central leadership.
The video
interview surfaced just weeks after the
assassination of another leading peace negotiator
and member of the HPC, former Taliban minister
Mullah Arsala Rahmani, was murdered in Kabul on
May 13.
In a text message sent to
Pakistani media outlets last month, Qari Hamza, a
spokesperson for the MDF, claimed his group had
assassinated Rahmani . "The infidel forces had
assigned Arsala to sell out the mujahideen to
non-Muslims, so that the non-Muslims could
continue their occupation of Afghanistan." He said
in the message.
In the video interview
seen by Asia Times Online, Khurrasani vowed that
his group would continue targeting all those
involved in peace talks on behalf of the Americans
or local puppets. "Crusaders have invaded
Afghanistan and therefore, agreement and
reconciliation with these people are not possible.
Anyone who will go into agreement with these
people, we will fight against them. The people,
who provide an opportunity to Americans, are their
supporters and helping them. There is no other way
except jihad against them."
Meanwhile, the
Taliban's official spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid,
has vigorously rejected allegations the group was
involved in the killing of Rabbani and Rahmani.
Mujahid has also said the Afghan Taliban
is not linked with the MDF, which has catapulted
itself into the limelight recently with a series
of suicide attack threats and provocations.
However, Afghan intelligence officials insist that
the group is a faction of the Mullah Omar-led
Afghan Taliban and has been tasked by the latter
with sabotaging peace efforts in the country, so
the Taliban can evade both local and global
condemnation.
Khurassani said he belonged
to an Afghan tribe, Salman Khel, and had been
fighting with the Taliban for 17 years. He
described himself a former provincial commander in
Baghlan province during the Taliban regime.
"Currently, I am serving as a commander for the
"Mullah Dadullah Front" in Paktika province," he
said. In the video, he is flanked and surrounded
by armed Taliban insurgents. One man holds a black
colored flag representing the group.
He
defended the use of suicide attacks and claimed
that United States military forces were suffering
heavy casualties in Afghanistan in the result of
suicide attacks. He paid homage to his group
spiritual leader Mullah Dadullah for introducing
suicide attacks in Taliban war against coalition
forces in Afghanistan. "In the times of Mullah
Dadullah, we had a group of fidayeen
(suicide attackers) which is still active." He
said.
During the interview he claimed that
his group has an active presence across
Afghanistan. "From the times of Dadullah to
present, we have 346 groups across Afghanistan. We
have our groups in every province, every district
- which are waging jihad inside Afghanistan under
the Islamic emirate against the invaders".
The commander denied that the
Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI,
Pakistan's intelligence agency, was providing help
to the Afghan Taliban. "The ISI is not providing
any help to the Afghan Taliban. This is mere a
propaganda to defame Taliban as relying on worldly
means to continue jihad against the invaders," he
said.
Residents, local Taliban and
journalists in the Pakistani tribal region that
straddle the border with Afghanistan say that they
have amply noticed the presence of Mullah Dadullah
Front on their side of the border.
"The
group has presence in both South and North
Waziristan. It is working in close co-ordination
with foreign militants affiliated with al-Qaeda,"
a Taliban commander in Wana told Asia Times
Online, the main town of the South Waziristan
tribal region.
"A few days back, I
personally saw a group of militants from the
Mullah Dadullah Front in Angoor Adda, comprising
of both local and Afghan militants, who was about
to leave for Afghanistan to attack Afghan and
Coalition forces," a local journalist, who spoke
on condition of anonymity citing security fears,
said referring to a town near the border with
Afghanistan.
He said several local men
belonging to the Wazir tribe have joined this
group and were involved in fighting against Afghan
and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud is
freelance journalist in Pakistan's South
Waziristan Agency.
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