Taliban: Masoud is dead

UPI ^ | Tuesday, 11 September 2001 21:13 (ET)

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Both Taliban and Western intelligence sources confirmed Tuesday that Afghan opposition leader Ahmad Shah Masoud had died.

"We do not take pleasure in anybody's death but the fact is that Masoud is dead," said a Taliban spokesman.

But an opposition spokesman insisted that Masoud was still alive, "although very seriously injured."

Earlier reports said that Masoud had survived a bombing Sunday that killed his aide, Asam Suhail, and two bombers posing as journalists.

A legendary commander of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, Masoud, 48, was the military leader of the anti-Taliban United Front.

While denying that the Taliban had orchestrated the attack, a Taliban spokesman told the United Press International, "We can confirm, he has died."

Masoud's death could deal a devastating blow to Northern Alliance efforts to fend off the Taliban in the remaining 5 to 10 percent of the Afghan territory still in the opposition's control.

The opposition blamed the attack on the Taliban and neighboring Pakistan, which they say provides weapons and military training to the religious militia ruling Afghanistan.

However, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday that Masoud was not only alive "but is in a good condition."

The report quoted the military attaché at the pro-Masoud Afghan embassy in Moscow as saying, "Masoud's condition is a lot better than yesterday, or the day before."

Col. Saleh Mohammed Registani argued that Muslim religious laws "require that a dead person be buried within 24 hours of his or her death. And since no funeral took place within this period, he is still alive."

However, Western intelligence sources, working from reports from agents in the region, said they believed Masoud had died in the attack, either en route to a hospital in neighboring Tajikistan or shortly after arriving there via helicopter.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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Far Eastern Economic Review - August 30, 2001 -

AHMAD SHAH MASUD - "... Osama bin Laden has emerged as a leader of youth extreme groups in the Arabic world and even in the Islamic world. I receive dozens of phone calls from all over the world asking me why as an Islamic person I fight Osama bin Laden. But our message is clear: I have said in the past and I repeat it again that we are against terrorism and its like for whatever purpose."

"Osama bin Laden is a criminal. And you know this is not easy to say. I am a person who has devoted his life to the jihad and it is not easy to say Osama bin Laden is a criminal."

[Mudboy Slim]

"...a Taliban spokesman told the United Press International, "We can confirm, he has died."

I don't know about y'all, but I trust the source about as much as I trust Dan Rather, and that means not at all!!

FReegards...MUD

[Twodees]

Me too, Slim. I trust their word on Masud's death about like I trust their word that Osama bin Ladin "could not have done this" in reference to the suicide crashes. That is to say, not at all.