Rabbani's Killing, A Cause Of Concern To All

New Delhi – It is a big blow to US peace efforts in Afghanistan. The former Afghan President, Burhanuddin Rabbani has been killed in a suicide bomb attack. The attacker had kept explosive concealed in his turban. Four security personnel were also killed in this attack. The killing of Rabbani (71) is a big blow to the peace process in the strife-torn Afghanistan. Following his killing, President Hamid Karzai decided to cut short his US tour and return home. According to the Kabul Police, the attacker had been invited to the Kabul residence of Rabbani on Tuesday evening as he was considered to be a special envoy bringing some special message from Taliban. While embracing Rabbani, the attacker triggered the explosive, kept in his turban.



The gravity of the challenge posed by Taliban after the withdrawal of US-led NATO forces from Afghanistan can be easily gauged from the killing of Rabbani. Rabbani was living in a high security zone area, close to the US Embassy. The Hamid Karzai government had appointed Rabbani as the Chief of its high-level Peace Council and he was continuing on this post for last one year. But now, with his killing, the possibilities of negotiations have weakened. A few months ago, Taliban had executed a plan to kill the half brother of the President Karzai, Wali Karzai, who was also killed deceitfully by one of his colleagues in the same manner as Rabbani was killed this time. Then, the Taliban gunan had killed the former Governor Jan Mohammed Khan. Taliban have been attacking the Karzai government since its establishment with the help of US and Western Countries. Killings one after the others have made it clear that Taliban are not in favour of negotiations. Long back, Taliban were created in the Pak Madrassas and even today a number of Taliban groups are under the influence of Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency ISI. In case of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Pakistan could get the much-talked strategic depth, in case of a war with India. That is why Pakistan does not want an India-friendly government in Afghanistan. Rabbani was considered to be a friend of India. Taliban would never like a person, who is friendly to America, India and Western Countries.

It is natural for India to be concerned over the killing of Rabbani and also over the instability in the neighbouring country. New Delhi is more concerned over the efforts to dispose off leaders in Afghanistan, who are trying hard for peace and confidence building measures. Dr. Manmohan Singh has called this incident as a big blow and has assured the people of Afghanistan of India’s full support in this hour of crisis. In a letter to Karzai, the Prime Minister has said that the best way to remember Rabbani would be to carry forward the work left unfinished by him.

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In Pakistan The Sword Is Deadlier Than The Pen

A recent report in The New Yorker states that  order to kill Pakistani investigative journalist Saleem Shahzad came from a senior officer on Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's staff. Quoting a Pakistani army officer, The New Yorker reported: "According to the American official, reliable intelligence indicates that the order to kill Shahzad came from a senior officer on General Kayani's staff. The officer made it clear that he was speaking on behalf of Kayani himself." The report said the presence of Islamists in Pakistan navy, and at Mehran naval base, which was attacked by terrorists, was not a secret among Pakistanis but that  Shahzad's article was particularly "incendiary".




May 2011 will go down in Pakistan history as literally a month of mayhem for not only stepped up explosions of gunfire and bombs, but also for exposures of long hidden facts and the shocks they caused to Pakistan’s army, its floundering civilian government and mostly to its people. While the killing of the world’s worst ever terrorist Osama bin Laden on 2 May, in a surprise-attack by US Special forces in the mansion at Abbotababad exposed yet another major deception of Pakistan army, Syed Saleem Shahzad’s book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 (Pluto Press/ distributed in India by Pentagon Press, 2011) exposed many more about its various nefarious connections.  The very well planned strike on Pakistan’s leading naval base at Karachi, PNS Mehran, two days after Shahzad’s article "Al-Qaeda had warned of Pakistani strike" appeared online and after the release of his book already containing many embarrassing exposures of Pakistan’s military, may well have egged his killers to expedite his elimination to prevent many more articles elaborating on already exposed linkages.

On 29 May 2011, one week after the release of his book in UK, Shahzad was abducted, days after writing an article suggesting that insiders in the Pakistan navy had colluded with Al-Qaeda in an attack on PNS Mehran. The next day he was brutally murdered and a day later, on 31 May, his battered body was recovered from a canal 60 kms away from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

The exposures caused by Osama’s killing and attack on Mehran were just  precursors to the vast range of wheels within wheels and cross -connections elaborated in  Shahzad’s book which are of great significance to India, US, Afghanistan and of course Pakistan.
US President Barack Obama may well have delivered on his campaign promise to kill Osama bin Laden, but during the decade that he remained on the run, he was not really a functional  Al-Qaeda strategist.

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