-Caveat Lector- Tussle on for Masood's successor http://www.thefridaytimes.com/news3a.htm Imtiaz Gul reports from Kabul The Friday Times Pakistan's First Independent Weekly Paper Paris (file photo): French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine greets Ahmed Shah Masoud http://www.thefridaytimes.com/p3a.jpg While mystery still shrouds the fate of the Northern Alliance's commander Ahmed Shah Masoud, injured a few days ago in a bomb explosion, reports indicate he will never be battle-worthy again even if he survives. Russian and Pakistani sources in fact indicate Masoud might already have expired. Itar-Tass, the Russian news agency reported Monday that Masoud had expired. The Alliance sources, however, deny the report and say he is being treated in a hospital in Tajikistan. Whatever be the case, the search is on for his replacement. The Jamiat-e-Islami chief and former Afghanistan president Burhanuddin Rabbani is likely to retain his place as the spiritual head since he is considered too soft to lead the troops in the battlefield. While some analysts point to Wali Shah Masoud, Ahmed Shah's brother, as the likely successor, sources in the Alliance told TFT that he is too "educated" for the job. However, it seems the tussle is on among some of Masoud's generals. Insiders say the tug of war might not only weaken the Alliance but may even split it into many factions. The Alliance was never without internal differences but Masoud had kept it together because of his charismatic personality. The fighting had become difficult even for Masoud despite his resources. When his troops lost big chunks of territory in the Takhar province a year ago, he opted to retreat to Khawaja Bahauddin in the Badakhshan province while using an obscure corner of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, for his diplomatic overtures. Over the past two years, Masoud had allowed former communist generals like Asif Dilawar, Saleh Mohammad and Aman Brakzai to move into his closer circle, with the notorious Dilawar being made the chief of the armed forces' organisation committee. The Uzbek warlord Dostum, another former communist general, has also been Masoud's close friend while Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, an avowed enemy of Masoud since their university days, also joined up with him after the Taliban took over Kabul in September 1996. Many Afghans viewed Masoud's strategy as treason. "We spilled our blood to get rid of the communists but this man has offered them lucrative positions only because he wants to outdo the Taliban," a neutral Afghan based in Tajikistan told TFT. Most people know Masoud from his sobriquet the "Lion of Panjshir". His detractors called him the Darling of the West. But the best appreciation of his combative skill came from Alexander Rutzkoi, a veteran of the Soviet troops that fought the Muslim guerillas for almost a decade. "He is a master strategist," said Rutzkoi. Masoud definitely knew the art of survival. And he survived some two decades of war and continuing civil strife in a country torn by ethnic hatreds. Early August, when the Taliban appeared set to finally overrun the Panjshir Valley, his impregnable stronghold and birthplace in the Parwan province, Masoud staged one of the most surprising comebacks. In a blitzkrieg counter-offensive he retook almost all the areas he had lost to the Taliban, including the Bagram airbase. Also, while the rise of the Taliban militia in the mid-1990s gradually demolished the myths woven around most of the seven leading Mujahideen commanders, including Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, Masoud until now stood out as the best fighter among the old mujahideen leadership. Sandy Gall, a British TV correspondent who met him several times, described Masoud as "arguably the best and the shrewdest guerilla commander the Afghan civil war has thrown up." A lean but charismatic figure, Masoud's life in the past two decades had been marked by a string of battles against Afghan communists, the Soviet army, the fellow mujahideen and now the Taliban. Born to an ethnic Tajik family in 1948 in the Panjshir Valley, some 100 kilometres northeast of Kabul, and inspired by his father, a colonel in the Afghan army, Masoud fancied a military career but had to study engineering at the Kabul University at his father's insistence. He also dreamed of becoming the overlord of Afghanistan and that is why never liked Pakistan's support for Hikmetyar. "Once he blatantly asked former foreign minister Sardar Assef why could a Tajik not become the ruler of Afghanistan and that he needed Pakistan's support to defeat Hikmetyar," a Pakistani diplomat told TFT in Peshawar. "I will teach you a lesson," Masoud reportedly thundered in his meeting with Sardar Assef in 1995. Taking a clue from what has happened to Masoud, the Taliban on Wednesday also banned visas for all intending journalists until next orders. "These journalists could become guides for the Americans to target the Taliban leaders or Osama bin Laden as well," said an Afghan diplomat in Islamabad while explaining the ban. --- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
