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Karzai prays at grave of slain rebel leader
Compiled from Times wires KABUL, Afghanistan -- Wiping tears from his eyes, Afghanistan's incoming prime minister, Hamid Karzai, made a pilgrimage Friday to the grave of slain opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood. The visit marked an important symbolic cementing of ties between Karzai, a Pashtun hereditary tribal leader, and Massood's Northern Alliance. Karzai, whose government is to take power Dec. 22, was accompanied by top officials in his new administration, including the defense minister, Mohammed Fahim, and the interior minister, Younous Qanooni. Massood, the Northern Alliance's main military commander, was mortally wounded in a suicide attack two days before the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes in the United States. Since his death, Massood has assumed near-cult status. In the Afghan capital, Kabul, cars with his portrait plastered on the windshield are a familiar sight. Karzai arrived in Kabul on Thursday, his first visit to the capital since being named interim prime minister at a U.N.-brokered conference in Germany this month. He spent his time closeted in meetings with various faction leaders. On Friday morning, traveling in sport utility vehicles, Karzai and his aides made the trip north to the Panjshir Valley. The graveyard, in the rugged Bazarak district, is known as Tapa Shahidan, or the Hill of Martyrs. Formally dressed in a brown cashmere coat, Karzai prayed before the flower-strewn grave to the chants of an imam, or Muslim cleric. Afterward, he could be seen wiping away tears. "This visit was politically important," said Abdul Sabur, 38, a Northern Alliance radio operator. "We appreciated his condolences to our leader." Karzai's Pashtun ethnic group is the largest in Afghanistan, but the Northern Alliance -- dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks -- took most of Afghanistan back from the Taliban, with the help of U.S. airstrikes. The alliance will be a driving force in the new government. Asked whether his visit was a gesture of reconciliation, Karzai replied: "We are already reconciled. We are already a united nation. I just came to honor one of our people." Afghanistan is a nation where the dead can be more important than the living and where gestures are louder than words. "Karzai had a responsibility to come and express condolences to Massood's relatives," said Hadji Tajudin, 65, Massood's father-in-law. "This affects Massood's supporters because they will see that he is Massood's friend and that he respects Massood. And if he respects Massood, then we will respect him. He'll face more difficulties if he doesn't have the support of Massood's people." Karzai knew Massood. Two months before the commander was killed, he had met with Karzai in the northern town of Khoja Bahauddin, Tajudin said. The two leaders had known each other from the days when they were mujahedeen, the U.S.-backed fighters who drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989. Karzai and Massood discussed ways of raising support for their cause outside the country as well as forming a new government once the puritanical Taliban had been ousted. They kept in close contact, Tajudin said, adding that the last time they spoke was two days before Massood was assassinated. "Karzai was his close friend," he said. "They were working together." Incoming Afghan leader Hamid Karzai pays a politically important visit to honor Ahmed Shah Massood.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
