Taliban leaders Sunday tossed Abdul Haq's gunshot-riddled, hanged corpse into a grave unbecoming for an Afghan war hero and with him buried western hopes of stirring imminent revolt in Kabul.
The body of the former mujahidin commander feted for humbling the Soviet army was not handed to relatives in Pakistan, as promised, but buried in his Taliban-controlled home village of Surkhrud, east Afghanistan. Mourners at a memorial service in Peshawar, Pakistan, suggested his body was withheld to conceal evidence of torture before his execution on Friday.
Haq was intercepted by Taliban troops after infiltrating Afghanistan last week on a quixotic mission to woo defectors from the Islamist regime and rally support for the exiled king Zahir Shah.
Hours later he was tried and executed in Kabul with two companions.
A Pashtun renowned for courage and integrity, as well as vanity, he was widely considered the best candidate for splitting Pashtun tribes from the Taliban, which is why his death came as a blow to the US-led campaign. "We lost our brother, but our war will persevere," Hajji din Mohammed, Haq's brother, told Afghan opposition leaders at a prayer service at the family compound in Peshawar.
The Taliban had promised to hand over the body but when Haq's brothers went to retrieve it at the border they were told he had been buried in Surkhrud. Relatives will press for it to be exhumed and returned to Pakistan, but some doubted ever seeing it.
"Some are saying he was tortured and so the Taliban do not want anyone to see how this happened," said one mourner.
Hundreds of mujahidin veterans who fought with Haq against the Russians in the 1980s filed into the walled family compound Sunday for condolences and green tea under a marquee. Some blamed the US for not saving him from the ambush 20 miles (32km) inside Afghanistan after he phoned for help. Coordinates from his satellite phone were passed to the CIA, but missiles from an unmanned US drone failed to fend off his attackers.
"We all hate America," said one veteran, Dad Mohammad. "They always want to use us and our people, and then they abandon us."
Haq, 43, quit politics and the region when the victorious mujahidin disintegrated into civil war, but he returned to Pakistan last month convinced he could help form a replacement government in Kabul. As intended, his fate may discourage others from trying similar mission.
One relative said it was too risky even for family members to enter Afghanistan to seek his body's release.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS