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.
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