Global media is reporting on the assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani. According to a CBS news report:
A suicide bomber posing as a Taliban peace envoy assassinated a former Afghan president who for the past year headed a government council trying to negotiate a political settlement with the insurgents. Tuesday’s attack, carried out in former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Kabul home by a militant who detonated explosives hidden in his turban, dealt a harsh blow to efforts at ending a decade of war. President Hamid Karzai cut short a visit to the U.S., calling on Afghans to remain unified in the face of Rabbani’s “martyrdom.” Rabbani’s death came days after a daytime assault by insurgents on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters, deepening a sense of insecurity in the capital. Special Section: Afghanistan NATO commander: 27 dead from Kabul attack Kabul attack a bad sign for Afghan security. NATO said in a statement that two suicide bombers were involved in the attack on Rabbani, both of them men who had feigned a desire to reconcile with the government. It was unclear if a second bomber was able to detonate his explosives. Afghan officials, however, insisted there was only one attacker. Four of Rabbani’s bodyguards also died and a key presidential adviser was wounded in the bombing, they said.
The CBS report goes on to note the strong Muslim Brotherhood ties of Rabbani:
Author and CBS News analyst Jere Van Dyk called Rabbani’s death “historic and extremely dangerous for Afghanistan.” Van Dyk met Rabbani in 1981 and last saw him in late 2006. Rabbani was a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood intellectual Sayeed Qutb, who was Osama bin Laden’s favorite author and probably had the greatest intellectual influence on al Qaeda, Van Dyk reports. In an interview in 2006, Rabbani told Van Dyk that he brought Qutb’s books to Kabul, thus introducing the group’s fundamentalism to Afghanistan.
A previous post discussed a Spring 1993 meeting in Afghanistan in which Rabbani participated that also included:
- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (controversial former mujahedeen also with ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood)
- Mustafa Machour (Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood)
- Kazi Hussain Ahmed (Head of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist group close to the global Muslim Brotherhood)
- Ghaleb Ali Himmat (a leader of the German Muslim Brotherhood)