Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
Member of Afghan Peace Council Is Killed
By ROD NORDLAND and JAWAD SUKHANYAR
KABUL — A gunman assassinated Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban
minister and an important go-between, on Sunday. Above, relatives at his
home.
- Spy Balloons Become Part of the Afghanistan LandscapeKuni Takahashi for The New York TimesRelatives and friends of Mullah Arsala Rahmani gathered outside his home in Kabul on Sunday.
By ROD NORDLAND and JAWAD SUKHANYAR
Published: May 13, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister who was an important go-between in potential peace talks, was shot and killed Sunday as he headed to a government meeting on reconciliation, Afghan officials said. Mr. Rahmani, who lived openly in Kabul under close protection from the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, was killed in his car by a gunman who then escaped, according to a fellow member of the High Peace Council, Muallawi Shafiullah Nuristani.“His assassination is a big loss, it will affect the peace process because he played an important role in mediating the peace talks and was a trusted person among the Taliban,” Mr. Shafiullah said. Mr. Rahmani had been the minister of higher education during the Taliban regime and was known as a relative moderate.A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by telephone, denied that they were responsible for the killing. Although Mr. Rahmani often acted as an informal spokesman for the Taliban during peace talks, the insurgents had disavowed him as an interlocutor. The Taliban had threatened to kill members of the High Peace Council as part of their spring offensive, according to local news reports.Last September, a Taliban emissary to the High Peace Council hid a bomb in his turban and assassinated the leader of the council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former Afghan president.“It is true that at the beginning of our spring operation we announced that among many other entities and individuals we will target members of the so-called High Peace Council,” Mr. Mujahid said, “and we are still committed to our campaign against the so-called members of the so-called High Peace Council, but again I insist that the Taliban were not behind today’s assassination.”Wahid Mojdah, a former Taliban official who is now a Kabul-based political analyst, said he thought it unlikely that the Taliban would have killed Mr. Rahmani. “He had never done anything to make the Taliban angry, he was playing an important role in convincing the Taliban and the Haqqanis to moderate their stance on schools and education,” Mr. Mojdah said, referring to the Haqqani network faction of the Taliban. “The fact that he was shot dead in front of his house while he was surrounded by his bodyguards raises a lot of questions.”Mr. Rahmani had just left his heavily guarded home in western Kabul to attend the inaugural meeting of a new government body when the attack took place, according to an Afghan police official, who requested anonymity because the death was still being investigated. It was unclear if anyone else was killed in the attack.The meeting of the new council, known as the High Council of the Independent Commission for Dispute Resolution and People-to-Government Relations, was announced Saturday; after the attack, it was canceled.Efforts to start peace talks with the Taliban have faltered in recent months as the Taliban disavowed them, and a smaller insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, which had already been in discussions with the Afghan government, announced that it was pulling out as well.There had been plans for the Taliban to open a political office in Qatar and for the United States to release Taliban prisoners currently at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of the government of Qatar. The release of an American, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held by the Taliban, was also under discussion.Also on Sunday, the Afghan government announced the beginning of the third phase of the transition, a process in which security authority is being transferred from international to Afghan forces in stages until a complete transfer by 2014.At a news conference, Aimal Faizi, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, said this stage would lead to 75 percent of Afghanistan’s population being under the protection of the country’s police and military forces. A statement from President Karzai noted that parts of all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces would be included in the transition now.The announcement came a week before a NATO summit meeting in Chicago intended to determine the allies’ future commitments in Afghanistan.The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force also announced that two service members were killed by an improvised bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday. No further details were available.
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