IRANIAN NEWS AGENCY SAY AHMAD SHAH MAS’OOD PASSED AWAY
TEHRAN 14 Sept. (IPS) Ahmad Shah Mas’ood, 48, the legendary Afghan war warrior has succumbed to the injuries he sustained in a suicide assassination last Sunday, the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted "reliable" Afghan sources as having confirmed on Friday.
The news was first dispatched by the Taleban-controlled Afghan Islamic Press and reported latter by the French news agency AFP.
However, IRNA on Friday did not mentioning its sources, but said the leader of anti-Taleban Northern Alliance Forces in Afghanistan died in hospital.
"They (sources) told IRNA that Mas’ood had been seriously wounded during the attempt on his life on September 9 and died Friday after a few days of struggling between life and death", the Agency said.
Mas’ood’s brother, Ahmad Wali and the Foreign Minister of the Northern Alliance, Dr. Abdollah had both said Thursday that his condition was "critical" and Golboddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan Prime Minister and a fore of Mas’ood had told the English-language "Iran News" that the veteran commander had died in the blast.
Ahmad Shah Mas’ood was reported to have been badly injured following a suicide attack on his life carried by two Moroccans posing as journalists and carrying Belgian passports, using a sophisticated device in the form of explosive place inside a photo camera they dentonated during interview on Mas’ood’s highly guarded office in Khajeh Baha’oddin, in the north of Afghanistan.
Afghan sources blamed the attempt on the Saudi anti-American crusader Ossama Ben Laden in close collaboration with the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence.
They also said that in case Mas’ood disappeared from the Afghan political and war scenes, the ruling Taleban who already control 90 per cent of the Afghan territory would have no difficulty in occupying the rest of the war-torn nation.
Mas’ood’s intelligence chief General Mohammad Fahim had been named as his temporary replacement.
Ahmad Shah Mas’ood, a distinguished guerrilla commander during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, has long been seen as the last bulwark against full Taleban control of the country.
He was backed by Iran and Russia against Pakistan, which supports the Taleban both militarily and politically.
The charismatic war commander came to Europe on the invitation of Mrs. Nicole Fontaine, the French Speaker of the European Parliament in Strasbourg and had met a number of European officials, including the French and Belgian foreign ministers, explaining them the situation in his devastated nation and urging them to put pressure on Pakistan to evacuate Afghanistan. ENDS MAS’OOD DEATH 14901