Monday, September 10 8:09 PM SGT
Afghan opposition headless without Masood
ISLAMABAD, Sept 10 (AFP) -
The extent of Afghan opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood's injuries following a failed assassination bid could have far-reaching consequences for the civil war, analysts said Monday.
Masood was in hospital somewhere in opposition-controlled northern Afghanistan or neighbouring Tajikistan after two Arab men posing as journalists exploded a bomb during a meeting in his office on Sunday.
Opposition sources have said the former defence minister's injuries are not life-threatening, but the two bombers as well as an opposition spokesman were killed in the blast.
Analysts said 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.
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 oppositon alliance together with deft diplomacy.
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.
Ex-communist general and Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam -- at various times over the past 10 years both an enemy and an ally of Masood's -- rejoined the alliance as recently as April after a period in exile following defeat at the hands of the Taliban.
He has launched a few minor attacks in his heartland of northern Balkh province since his return, but has failed to seriously trouble the Islamic militia which seized Kabul in 1996.
In central Bamiyan province, the opposition alliance consists of Shiite Hazara forces led by the Hezb-e-Wahdat, a group which helped reduce much of Kabul to rubble when Masood was defence minister in the early 1990s.
Faced with the common threat of the Taliban, they have also buried their differences and sought safety in Masood's alliance, although they have proved incapable of significant action outside the Hazarajat region around Bamiyan.
In the west, former governor of Herat province Islmail Khan also returned from exile in Iran earlier this year and has begun small-scale attacks against Taliban forces in the area.
His forces are believed to control swathes of countryside but the main roads and towns appear to be firmly in the Taliban's grip.
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.