WITH ANTI-TALIBAN FORCES still unable to rally behind one leader, the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud becomes all the more lamentable. Massoud, known as the Lion of the Panjshir, headed the Northern Alliance until his murder nearly two months ago. By now, the Alliance and its struggle against the Taliban regime are familiar. But when terrorists infiltrated Massoud’s hideout in Khodja Bahauddin on September 9, few in the outside world were even aware of it. At a State Department briefing on September 10, spokesman Philip Reeker was asked about the rumors of an explosion that might have killed Massoud. Reeker said there was still no confirmation. Massoud was, in fact, in a hospital in Tajikistan being treated by Russian army surgeons. He would linger there for five days before succumbing to his wounds. The world, by then, had been convulsed by the bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. News of Massoud’s death only made matters worse. The Northern Alliance, which the United States hoped could topple the Taliban regime, was now leaderless. The newspapers offered only scant information, but last week, Sandra Kegel of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper, interviewed a survivor of the attack. His name is Faheem Dasty, a 28-year-old journalist and filmmaker who was working on a documentary about the Northern Alliance. Dasty had once worked at the Kabul Weekly, a paper financed by Massoud. When the government shut it down, he followed the rebel leader to the north and joined the Afghan press agency Ariana, which he now heads. In both instances, Dasty was encouraged to write the truth — up to a point. Massoud once told him, “You can print what you want–but no caricatures of myself.” On the afternoon of September 9, Massoud was scheduled for an interview with two journalists, something he had done before. But it turned out to be more than that. Dasty’s account of those chilling moments, as reported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, is worth quoting: “It was not quite 1p.m., Mr. Dasty recalled, when he, the two Arabs and an interpreter entered the guest house in the Northern Alliance’s headquarters. Mr. Massoud and his long-time companion and ambassador to India, Massoud Khalili, were waiting. While one of the Arabs began to prepare his camera, the other read Mr. Massoud the questions in halting English. “To make conversation, Mr. Dasty commented on the cameraman’s muscular build, and the man replied that he had taken up boxing 16 years earlier. Then he removed the table between himself and his interview partners, and pointed the long lens of his camera straight at Mr. Massoud. Mr. Dasty placed his camera in position, behind that of his supposed colleague.” “The interview started just as I leaned over my camera,” Dasty tells the German newspaper. “It did not even last 15 seconds. Then I heard a terrible explosion.” One assassin was instantly killed, while the other was shot trying to escape. Azim Suhail, one of Massoud’s aides, also died from the blast. Khalili was seriously injured. After the explosion, writes Kegel, “Dasty dragged himself out of the devastated room, screaming that he was on fire, and somehow clambered into the car Mr. Massoud’s followers used to carry their hero away. There he passed out, only to regain consciousness several days later in the hospital in Dushanbe (in Tajikistan).” Thanks to the organization Reporters Without Borders, Dasty was transported to Paris and is currently convalescing in the (recognized) Afghan embassy. More than a month later, the investigation into who killed Massoud continues. On October 23, Scotland Yard detectives arrested Yasser al-Siri, a suspected supporter of Osama bin Laden. Authorities claim that Siri helped the assassins secure Belgian passports. He is also wanted by Egyptian authorities for the attempted murder of that country’s former prime minister, Atef Sedki, back in 1993, which resulted in the death of a 12-year-old girl. (Interestingly, the British have refused to extradite Siri because he would face the death penalty in Egypt.) The Taliban has not claimed responsibility for Massoud’s death–though they freely admit they benefit the most from it. But there is no doubt in Faheem Dasty’s mind that bin Laden and the Taliban are to blame. Dasty also condemns Pakistan for making the regime what it is today. “We have not only lost a friend, we have lost everything,” Dasty despairs. As Kegel notes, Massoud was the victim of “a cruel deception–for all the violence of long years of war, suicide attacks had been unknown in Afghanistan, in part because they violate the tribal code of honor.” America would also become a victim of this “cruel deception” only two days later. Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
