Posted on 10/27/2001 9:57:46 AM PDT by Enlightiator
Abdul Haq - The "Real" Story
The Man, US Involvement, Betrayal and Death
The following is a compilation of information from the best news reports I can find on the Abdul Haq incident. I have selected quotes from the articles, please read the entire articles I have linked to for the full story. I would appreciate any links to other good articles.
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Abdul Haq, The Man
From 1988, Abdul Haq wrote to American, British and United Nations diplomats warning that CIA money and weapons were funding terrorist training camps run by radical Afghan mujahideen and Saudi extremists bent on overthrowing moderate Middle Eastern governments. He took a similarly strong line against the Taliban, claiming that they were backing terrorists.
In 1999 his wife, Karima, and his 11-year-old son Jamil were assassinated at Peshawar by a Taliban hit-squad. Family friends inside the Taliban supplied the names of the assassins who were killed according to local traditions of justice. He remarried nearly a year ago.
In recent years, Abdul Haq had been pivotal in attempts to convene a traditional national assembly, a Loya Jirga. He opposed the recent allied bombings of Afghanistan, fearing that ordinary Pashtuns would be driven to support the Taliban. He was on a mission to eastern Afghanistan, encouraging Taliban commanders to defect, when he was captured and killed.
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK) 10/26-27 via thread: Abdul Haq -- obituary
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--This guy was a lot more than a fighter," Joe Ritchie said. "He had a unique ability to bring Afghans together. These people could have been toppled. He was planning to do it before Sept. 11. He lit the fuse, but what happened after Sept. 11 made it a lot tougher." State Department officials confirmed the roles of the Ritchie brothers in financing Mr. Haq's expedition into Afghanistan.
Mr. Haq argued repeatedly that the United States, having sown the seeds of victory against the Soviets, would reap a whirlwind of hatred if it did not help cultivate civil society in Afghanistan.
"For us, Afghanistan is destroyed," he said in a 1994 interview with The New York Times. "It is turning to poison, and not only for us but for all others in the world. If you are a terrorist, you can have shelter here, no matter who you are.
"Maybe one day they will have to send hundreds of thousands of troops to deal with that," he predicted. "And if they step in, they will be stuck. We have a British grave in Afghanistan. We have a Soviet grave. And then we will have an American grave."
Source: NY Times, Oct. 27, 2001 article "Call for U.S. Help Is Too Late for Taliban Foe", full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/27/international/asia/27HAQ.html
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US Involvement
Desperate final moments of executed opposition leader
He called for help as Taliban surrounded him
Washington -- The mayday from Afghanistan arrived at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters on Thursday.
"I am cut off on a steep mountain road," said Abdul Haq, a former commander of Afghan rebel forces against the Soviets, on a satellite phone from outside Jalalabad to his nephew across the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. "There are Taliban ahead and Taliban behind. Can you do something?"
A second call then went to James Ritchie, a wealthy American in Pakistan, who with his brother, Joe, had helped finance Haq's quixotic trip to try to build an anti-Taliban coalition of local commanders and tribal chiefs in the southern and eastern part of the country.
James Ritchie called Robert McFarlane, national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan during the Afghans' war against the Soviets 15 years ago. McFarlane had joined forces this year with Joe Ritchie to lobby on behalf of Afghanistan's exiled 87-year-old king, Mohammed Zahir Shah.
McFarlane, who described all of Thursday's calls in detail, said he contacted the CIA's operations center.
The CIA, he said, gave Haq's satellite phone coordinates to the U.S. Central Command's duty officer at agency headquarters.
McFarlane said a U.S. warplane fired on a column of Taliban soldiers approaching Haq. He suggested this was an attempt to assist or save Haq, but there was no immediate confirmation of this assertion from the Pentagon.
At 4 a.m. yesterday in Afghanistan, Central Command called Haq back.
No answer came.
According to McFarlane and other supporters of Haq's who talked to him in the hours before his death, he entered Afghanistan last weekend with 19 colleagues, a few rifles, a few automatic weapons and a pistol -- followed by Pakistani intelligence. They said Haq had no support from American intelligence, no money and no arms.
But McFarlane said the American consulate in Peshawar had sent a cable to Washington describing Haq "like he was a Lawrence of Afghanistan."
McFarlane said that when the group was surrounded by the Taliban on Thursday night, it scattered, then dialed in to supporters in Pakistan, hoping for a rescue from American forces. In Pakistan, James Ritchie supplied the U.S.
military with precise coordinates of the group's location.
Then, yesterday, Haq's brother in Peshawar received a call. The call came from the satellite phone his brother had taken into Afghanistan. The Taliban were on the line. News of Haq's execution soon followed.
By nightfall, "one of our people saw his body lying in the street," said Joe Ritchie, a retired options trader in Illinois who said he and his brother had helped underwrite Haq's trip.
Love and vengeance and dreams of glory had driven Haq from exile and back into Afghanistan, his country. His wife and his son had died at the hands of his enemies. He apparently wanted, somehow, to fight back. He was a middle- aged man on a mule, a privately financed freelancer trying to overthrow the Taliban, without direct support from any nation, any army, any intelligence service.
Haq commanded nothing in a military sense. But he saw himself, in recent months, as capable of leading his country out of a generation of war and despair.
"This guy was a lot more than a fighter," Joe Ritchie said. "He had a unique ability to bring Afghans together. These people could have been toppled.
He was planning to do it before Sept. 11. He lit the fuse, but what happened after Sept. 11 made it a lot tougher."
Joe Ritchie, who sold his Chicago options trading business for $225 million in 1993, grew up in Afghanistan. His father is buried in Kabul. He is best known today as mission-control director for the adventurer Steve Fossett's attempts to circle the world in a balloon.
Both missions, he said yesterday, were "tilting at windmills."
McFarlane said: "I do not fault the U.S. military on this. The U.S. military tried to be helpful by showing up."
McFarlane said he did fault the CIA for not working with Haq on his mission to build political coalitions in Afghanistan, and for not speaking the Afghan languages, literally and figuratively.
"They spend $30 billion, and they don't have anybody out there who speaks Dari or who understands who these players are," he said.
Source: Desperate final moments of executed opposition leader ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
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On Thursday, his nephew in Pakistan received an urgent call.
"I am cut off on a steep mountain road," Mr. Haq said from outside Jalalabad to his nephew across the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. "There are Taliban ahead and Taliban behind. Can you do something?"
The nephew called James Ritchie, a wealthy American in Pakistan, who with his brother, Joe, had helped finance Mr. Haq's quixotic trip to try to build an anti-Taliban coalition of local commanders and tribal chiefs in the southern and eastern part of the country. Mr. Ritchie, in turn, called Mr. McFarlane, who advised President Reagan during the Afghans' war on the Soviets in the 1980's. Mr. McFarlane said he contacted the C.I.A.'s operations center.
The C.I.A. indicated it would do what it could to help, Mr. McFarlane said. The agency was given Mr. Haq's coordinates, which were conveyed by his satellite telephone.
Mr. McFarlane hoped the United States military would extract Mr. Haq and his men or protect them a withering barrage of fire.
As the night wore on, Mr. Haq's plight became bleaker. At one point, a call was received that a Taliban column in the Jalalabad area was approaching. It is not immediately clear if the call was from Mr. Haq or his men . and James Ritchie passed it on the C.I.A.
Mr. McFarlane said a United States aircraft attacked the Taliban soldiers about 4 a.m. yesterday. The C.I.A. and the Pentagon declined to comment, and it is possible that it was an unmanned predator drone equipped with anti-tanks missiles, an aircraft that is used by the C.I.A. as well as the United States military.
Then Mr. Haq's brother in Peshawar received a call. The call came from the satellite phone his brother had taken into Afghanistan. The Taliban was on the line and they said Mr. Haq had been captured.
News of Mr. Haq's execution soon followed.
[skip to later comments in article]
It is certainly a tragic loss," Mr. McFarlane said. "But I do not fault the United States military on this. The United States military tried to be helpful by showing up and asking for the normal information they needed to run an effective operation," Mr. McFarlane said.
He was less charitable, however, to the American intelligence establishment.
"They spend $30 billion and do not have anybody out there who speaks Dari or who understands who these players are," Mr. McFarlane said. "Everybody is bad-mouthing Abdul Haq as if they have never read a history of the Soviet war."
Mr. Haq's supporters say he needed weapons and helicopter support. But the sole support he was offered was several satellite telephones, which C.I.A. and British agents offered to provide just before he entered Afghanistan. Mr. Haq, who already had satellite phones and figured the Americans just wanted to listen in on him, turned the offer down, Mr. McFarlane said.
Source: NY Times, Oct. 27, 2001 article "Call for U.S. Help Is Too Late for Taliban Foe", full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/27/international/asia/27HAQ.html
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Taleban spokesman Mohammed Tayyab Agha had earlier told the BBC that Haq and two other men had been killed after US attempts to rescue him failed.
He said at least one American had been travelling with Haq and was now on the run.
The Pentagon said it could not confirm Haq's death nor any rescue attempt, but said the death would be a loss for the prospect of a broad-based government in the country.
[skip]
Mr Agha said US helicopters had launched a dramatic rescue attempt after Haq called for help by satellite phone, but he was caught as he tried to flee on horseback.
Haq was executed at 1300 local time (0830 GMT) on a religious edict issued by Mullah Omar and Muslim clerics in Afghanistan, Mr Agha said.
Haq's nephew, Mohammed Yousuf, said that he his uncle and a companion named only as Hamid were hanged following their capture.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1621000/1621278.stm
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Betrayal and Death
The Taliban said Abdul Haq was executed for spying for the United States and trying to set up a rebellion among the Pashtun tribes of southern Afghanistan.
Another of Abdul Haq's brothers, Haji Muhammad, said the renowned commander from the resistance fight against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation had been on a "peace mission" to Afghanistan.
One of Abdul Haq's associates in Peshawar, Haji Hayatullah, confirmed that the veteran guerrilla fighter had rushed into Afghanistan against the advice of his friends.
"He was betrayed," he said. "He had been talking with high-ranking Taliban officials who tricked him into going to Afghanistan by saying they were ready to negotiate."
Source: AFP, 10/27/2001, "Abdul Haq's brother confirms death" via thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/557682/posts
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Omar Samad, director of the Afghanistan Information Centre and advisor to the US Congress, told the BBC that he thought Haq had been betrayed by someone linked to the Taleban before his departure from Pakistan.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1621000/1621278.stm
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If the CIA Director and anyone else involved in this debacle isn't immediately fired - we're in for a long, long war.
The question I have is whether the US Central Command even knew this guy was in the country or if they only found out after the call from McFarlane. I would imagine the latter.
I'd say a short, losing war.
Maybe, but I would not rule out certain individuals in the Pakistan Intelligence service (ISI) as being involved in the betrayal at this point, some of them are known to be Taliban sympathizers.
Guerrilla fighter's death a blow to U.S. strategy
Posted 12:15 a.m. EDT Saturday Oct. 27:
By MICHAEL ZIELENZIGER and KARL SCHOENBERGER
Knight Ridder NewspapersPESHAWAR, Pakistan - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Friday captured and executed the legendary guerrilla fighter Abdul Haq, a key opponent of the Taliban from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtun.
His death is a significant blow to the U.S. strategy of creating an indigenous opposition in Afghanistan that could revolt against the Taliban leadership and is also an important psychological victory for the Taliban, although Haq no longer commanded troops fighting the hard-line regime.
The burly and bearded Haq gained a fierce reputation as a mujahadi, or holy warrior, fighting the Soviet invasion of his country during the late 1980s, during which he lost a foot.
He had secretly journeyed into Afghanistan last Sunday from Pakistan, his aides said, in hopes of building support among ethnic Pashtun tribes for a transitional government being organized on behalf of former King Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry said Haq, 43, and two others were arrested early Friday morning near Jalalabad and had been executed "on the basis of the verdict of the Ulema (Muslim clerics) that anyone who assists the United States is liable to be killed," a spokesman said.
Late Friday evening, a close aide to Haq, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the legendary warrior had been killed. "They hung him and left his body out on the street in Kabul, " the associate said bitterly. "I can't believe they'd be that stupid to kill him. Maybe an Arab might have done it, but no Pashtun would have killed Abdul Haq."
In territory held by the anti-Taliban United Front, also known as the Northern Alliance, response to Haq's death was muted. He was not regarded highly by the United Front because he no longer commanded troops against the Taliban and he was not seen as a major peacemaker.
Haq's aide said Haq and a party of 19 had been ambushed about 10:30 p.m. Thursday while traveling in Logar province.
HAQ CALLED U.S. FOR HELP; IT WAS TOO LATE
In his final hours, Haq called on the United States for help.
He and his party were isolated on a road west of Jalalabad and "knew there were Taliban up ahead of him, and behind," said former national security adviser Robert McFarlane, who, from Washington, was in indirect contact with the Afghan commander. Haq's nephew placed a satellite phone call to James Ritchie, an American with long experience in Afghanistan, in Peshawar. Ritchie called McFarlane, who alerted the U.S. military. They responded, but "it was too late," McFarlane said in a telephone interview Friday.
The Taliban said they had fought off efforts by U.S. helicopter crews to extricate Haq, but Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said there was no American rescue effort on his behalf.
"He had gone in to coordinate the activities of other military commanders" in the Pashtun region, McFarlane said, adding that Haq's death means "a huge loss of the most charismatic leader in the Pashtun nation."
Haq's aide denied that Haq was a spy.
"The U.S. never offered him any help," the aide complained. "They never gave him any money, even though they often compromised his position, both inside and outside of Afghanistan, by suggesting they were. We spent two years trying to get assistance from the United States, and in the end they never offered him anything of substance."
The aide also denied Taliban reports that Haq was captured after a firefight in which four Taliban soldiers and three civilians were injured: "There was no firefight; the group had only four guns between them. They had nothing to fight with."
"His mission was not against the Taliban," said Haje Din Mohammed, Haq's older brother in Peshawar. "It was a mission for Afghanistan. It was a mission for peace."
'ON A MISSION FOR PEACE, NOT FOR WAR'
Haq had visited Rome recently to confer with the exiled former king, and was trying to organize a variety of other ethnic Pashtun leaders to repudiate the Taliban and form a political movement that could replace the hard-line government. He had been living in Dubai, where he was a businessman, but had returned recently to Peshawar to help organize anti-Taliban opposition.
In Rome, A. Hamid Sidiq, a spokesman for the former king, said Haq "was on a mission for peace, not for war. He was not going to fight anyone, but to talk to tribal elders" and tell them about the peace initiative the former king had undertaken.
Haq was the second important Afghan warrior the Taliban killed in recent months. On Sept. 9, two days before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, suicide bombers masquerading as journalists fatally wounded opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood, head of the United Front, who died of his injuries several days later.
On Friday, Pakistani government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also reported that in Pakistan's remote Northwest Frontier Province, about 15,000 armed Muslim radicals loyal to Sufi Mohammed, a local religious leader, would begin marching into Afghanistan on Saturday to take up the Taliban cause.
"They have been waiting on the roadsides for the signal of the Taliban for them to come," one official said. "Tomorrow they will be on the move."
(Knight Ridder correspondents Andrew Maykuth, Warren P. Strobel and Tom Infield contributed to this report.)
then we trust the Pakistani's who setup this Government , who in turn plays us like a fool and let Hag get slaughtered. We have no Miltary plan. Spending 300,000 or more per tank or broken Helicopter and show highlights like we achived anything PLEASE this is a close to Clinton and firing into a tent with missles
WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THESE BLUNDERS
Major setback for efforts aiming at political dispensation
Syed Anwer
Updated on 10/27/2001 12:16:48 PM
PESHAWAR: Afghanistan’s puritanical Taliban militia Friday mowed down former mujahideen commander Abdul Haq after capturing him in Logar province.
Haq, who had attracted widespread media attention after returning to Peshawar recently and making known his intention to embark on a peace mission, had slipped into Afghanistan to prepare ground for a broad-based government led by former monarch Zahir Shah.
Taliban’s official Bakhtar news agency said he was executed for treason.
Haq was captured early Friday, apparently after one of his sponsors in Afghanistan betrayed him.
The number of his companions executed with him is disputed, put by various media reports at 3, 5, and 8.
Unconfirmed reports from inside Afghanistan say he was accompanied by a squad of 40, all of who were either killed in the skirmish or executed after arrest.
The Frontier Post has learnt that the Taliban security apparatus apprehended the former Mujahideen commander in Logar province, some 30 miles east of Kabul, on a tip-off.
Reports say Haq, who was accompanied by at least 40 fighters, posed resistance, but was overpowered.
The gun battle between Haq’s party and the Taliban left four Taliban soldiers and three civilians were injured, Bakhtar said.
The overwhelmed former commander was charged with espionage for the United States and Britain, and was executed under a religious decree that stipulates death for anyone spying for enemy.
According to Bakhtar, Haq was found with two satellite telephones, some cash in US dollars, and unspecified documents.
Reliable Afghan sources told The Frontier Post that Commander Haq ventured into Afghanistan after contacts with the Taliban administrator of Hisarak Ghilji district of Nangarhar province.
The administrator agreed to hand over conrol of the district to Commander Haq in return for a large sum of money.
But the administrator is said to have informed Taliban intelligence about the deal and due to this secret plot-a move that led to Commander Haq’s death.
Online adds: Taliban leader Mullah Omar said Friday that opposition leader Abdul Haq had been hanged to death.
Omer told the BBC that two of Haq’s men, captured with him, had also been executed.
Taliban forces captured Haq after surrounding his hiding place south of the capital, Kabul.
It is said that US helicopters launched a rescue attempt during the arrest, but failed, and that three Americans who had been traveling with Abdul Haq escaped during the attack.
Haq had been executed at 1300 local time on a religious edict issued by Mullah Omar and Muslim clerics.
The arrest had been described as a major setback in US-backed efforts to replace the Taliban regime with a broad-based and multi-ethnic government.
Naveed Siddiqui reported earlier: Former Afghan Commander and a former security minister, Maulvi Abdul Haq, has been arrested by the Taliban along with eight aides on Thursday night on charges of spying for the US against the Taliban.
His relatives in Peshawar confirming the arrest, denied espionage charges saying that he was on peace mission to Afghanistan, and planned to hold discussion with the Taliban authorities for restoring peace and stability.
Addressing a press conference, brother of arrested former commander, Haji Din Mohammad said Haq was shifted to Jalalabad soon after the arrest.
“However we do not have further information about his fate”, said Din Mohammad.
Rejecting the allegations of spying, he said that Abdul Haq was carrying only a mobile telephone while the Taliban charged him of carrying weapons and big amount of money to get the support of the Taliban commanders.
He said his was also among the arrested persons.
He appealed the Taliban to immediately release Haw and his companions.
He asked for immediate restoration of peace by giving representation to all the ethnic and religious groups.
Other reports quoted a nephew of Haq as saying the commander was alive.
Asked how he knew his uncle was alive, he replied, “We don’t have any source but we know that he’s alive”.
He refused to give details.
And like the Afghanis, they aren't Arab.
Here are a few links...
Turkey, Bangladesh may lead peace force in Afghanistan
Planned Afghan opposition meeting in Turkey delayed
Turks Want War -- NOW Interesting Pakistani News Article
You are welcome to do it on your own.
The more I read about this - the angrier I get.
You mean to tell me that someone of the stature of Abdul Haq on a critical mission on our behalf had to resort to having a Pakistanian business associate call an ex-National Security Advisor to then contact the US Central Command to receive protection?
This is an umitigated disaster. He should have been shadowed with the utmost protection from the outset. He should have been in direct contact with our military (not CIA) the entire time.
A DISGRACE.
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