Mystery over closure of Afghan blog

 

President Najibullah hanging in Aryana Square in September 1996

Afghan journalist Fahim Khairy has been writing his blog Suffering City for the past year or so, much of it concentrating on internal political issues in Afghanistan and in particular criticising what he perceives to be the pro-Pashtun sentiments of the Karzai government.
But something has happened in the last week and the blog has been closed down for reasons that are still unclear. It seems that someone found his username and then hacked his password. Having done that, they then closed down the site. What could have prompted such an action? One possibility is that it is connected to a series of articles Khairy has written, based on the remarkable book Hidden Secrets by Razaq Mamoon.
This book, published in Dari in Afghanistan, examines the events that led up to the brutal killing of President Najibullah in Kabul in December 1996. Until now, it has always been believed that Najibullah was dragged from a UN compound and strung up from a lamppost in Kabul by the victorious Taliban forces who had entered the city shortly before.
However, Mamoon's book argues that he was killed by three men, two of whom were former communist comrades of Najibullah, but who had fled the country following a split in the Khalq party in 1991. The third person involved, according to Mamoon, was Colonel Imam, the infamous Pakistani intelligence officer who was murdered in North Waziristan in February. Imam was shot dead on the orders of Hakimullah Mahsud, leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, who watched as this hero of the anti-Soviet jihad was callously shot in the head.
Mamoon's book includes a series of documents from the Taliban's own intelligence service archive that  appear to confirm Mamoon's story of Najibullah's murder. According to these documents, the two other killers were Shanawaz Tanai, who once served as Najibullah's defence minister, and Garzai Khowkhozai. These two men later formed an anti-Najibullah movement in Pakistan and were  supported by the ISI.

Garzai was later arrested by the Taliban and the documents referred to by Mamoon and reproduced by Khairy appear to be handwritten notes from Garzai's interrogation. He says Col. Imam - at that time a serving officer in the Pakistan Army as well as an intelligence officer - was with him when they brought Najibullah to the Presidential Palace from the UN building at around midnight. A Taliban judge queried whether the killing of Najibullah would create a bad image of the Taliban, but Najibullah reassured them that no-one would care. The Taliban judge also asked why the former comrades wanted to kill Dr. Naibullah. Garzai replied that they were taking revenge for their comrades who were killed by Najib after the failed the coup in 1990. Garzai added that he was proud of killing him.
Not long after arriving, Najibullah was brought in the courtyard where he was forced to get into a car. There had already been an argument between Col Imam and Najibullah, although the reason for it is unclear. As he was brought into the courtyard Najib resisted and they started beating him and calling him names. Still he refused to get in the car. They finally shot and killed him and then tied him up and threw him into the back of a pick-up truck before driving away. His dead body was driven to Aryana Square where they hung him from a lamppost.
Following the publication of his book, Mamoon was attacked and badly injured in Kabul in January this year. His assailant threw acid in his face, saying that he had been forced to do it by men with Iranian accents. Mamoon's most recent book, Footprint of Pharoah, is about Iranian interference in Afghanistan.
This may explain the attack on Mamoon, but the identity of whoever it was who hijacked Khairy's site remains a mystery. Based in the United States since 2003, Fahim Khairy is in a wheelchair, following the onset of Guillain Barre Syndrome which has left him paralysed. He is a campaigner for disabled people in Afghanistan and a harsh critic of the Karzai Administration in Afghanistan.
Was it the ISI that closed down the site, concerned about the revelations? Or was it the Iranians, possibly seeking to limit the influence of Mamoon? Or was it connected to the internecine feuding that dominates some parts of Afghan polity?

Pak Taliban confirms murder of Colonel Imam

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has confirmed it killed former ISI officer and leading supporter of the Afghan Taliban, Colonel Imam, according to numerous reports now circulating in Pakistan. They say they will release a video of his killing later today. Reports about murder of Imam - real name Sultan Amir Tarar - first surfaced on 23 January, but could not be confirmed. Some reports at the time suggested he had died of a heart attack while in captivity. He had been kidnapped along with another former ISI officer and British journalist Asad Qureshi in North Waziristan last March while attempting to facilitate the making of a documentary on the CIA's drone missile campaign.
Update:  Dawn says it has a copy of the video, which includes a statement from TTP chief Hakimullah Mahsud. However, it has not yet made the content public. The screen-grab below shows Col Imam seated on the ground, with Hakimullah standing behind him. Soon after this moment Hakimullah tells a young masked gunman to shoot Imam, which he does using a pistol.

Colonel Imam murdered by his kidnappers in Wazirstan

Colonel Imam, the former Pakistani ISI officer responsible for training many of the current leaders of the Afghan Taliban, including leader Mullah Omar, has been found murdered outside the town of Mir Ali in North Wazirstan, according to media reports.
Imam - real name Sultan Amir Tarar - was kidnapped last April along with another former ISI officer, Khalid Khwaja and British journalist Asad Qureshi and his driver. Khwaja was later murdered, but Qureshi was released after his family paid a large ransom.
It is believed the men were kidnapped by a group calling itself the Punjabi Taliban, made up from expelled members of the Pakistan Taliban and the sectarian Lashkar-Jhangvi group. Some of the group's leaders, including Usman Punjabi, died last August in a shoot-out over how Qureshi's ransom should be divided.
Col. Imam and Khwaja were both Taliban sympathisers and had accompanied Qureshi to Waziristan so that he could make a film. However, the kidnappers believed the two former ISI officers were spies. Despite attempts to secure their freedom by Taliban officials the two men were killed.
Videos were made of both men before they were killed. Khwaja was shown allegedly confessing to being a CIA spy, while Col Imam begged the authorities to do something to save him.
Once report says that he was killed when his family failed to deliver a $590,000 ransom. The killers now say they want a ransom before they will hand over the body.

Another falling out between the 'brothers'

More fallout from the kidnapping of two former members of the ISI and British-born Pakistani journalist Asad Qureshi and his driver in March this year. On Sunday morning the body of Sabir Mahsud was found in the main market of the Razmuk area of North Waziristan. A letter on his body signed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan said that he was the leader of the Asian Tigers, the group that abducted the four men in March and later killed one of them, Khalid Khwaja. The letter said that Mahsud's killing was in revenge for Khwaja's death.
Mahsud became leader of the Asian Tigers - believed to be an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - at the end of August following an internal feud within the group over an Arab widow (see my blogpost on this incident) that led to at least seven deaths. Until he was killed in that shootout by Mahsud and his supporters, the leader of the Asian Tigers had been Usman Punjabi. Sabir Mahsud is a former member of the TTP, but he was expelled for criminal activities.
Khwaja, the former airforce and ISI officer, had been highly respected by many jihadis in the tribal areas and had often acted as a go-between between them and the government. When he was kidnapped, the TTP urged the Asian Tigers to release him, but to no avail. Instead they murdered him.
Asad Qureshi, who was educated in Bradford, was released in September along with his driver, but there has been no word on the fate of Colonel Imam, the other ISI officer kidnapped at the same time. Fears must now be growing for his safety.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Qureshi and the other prisoners were kept in isolation in a six by six foot cell, barely able to move, and subjected to physical and mental torture. He appears to have been released following the intervention of relatives in Pakistan, although it is unclear if a ransom was paid. The Telegraph quoted Qureshi as saying: "I was terrified. I was beaten and whipped. One of my colleagues was killed. I feared for my own life and I am lucky to be alive."
Update: Was the shooting incident in Dandy Darpakhel at the end of August in which Usman Punjabi and five of his associates were killed connected to the payment of a ransom for the freedom of Asad Qureshi? It was said at the time that it was a dispute over a wealthy Arab widow whose husband had been killed in a drone strike. However, this may not be the case. Qureshi was first reported released on 9 September, but had undoubtedly been freed some days before after the payment of a ransom by his family. The PTI news agency reports today that there was a gunfight between Usman Punjabi's group and the Sabir Mahsud group - who together made up the Asian Tigers - over the division of the ransom. Mahsud came out on top of that dispute, but appears to have angered the TTP, which killed him and two others after kidnapping them from their office in Miranshah on Sunday.
Evidence that the TTP was bound to take revenge on Sabir Mahsud for killing Usman Punjabi can be found in an article published in The News International at the time of the August shoot-out:
"A Taliban commander, when reached by phone, in North Waziristan said the incident had sent a wave of shock and concern among the militants. He said senior Taliban leaders, including some from tribal areas and Punjab, had taken strong exception to the killing of six militants by their colleagues and threatened to punish the culprits. “The Taliban are now trying to get hold of Sabir Mahsud and his men and punish them for their crime,” said the Taliban commander, wishing not to be named."
The same article mentioned that the Asian Tigers had fallen out over money and over what to do with the hostages. What a squalid and murderous little world these people inhabit.

British journalist freed in Pakistan

Asad Qureshi, the British journalist kidnapped in March in North Waziristan, has been freed and reunited with his family in Islamabad, according to reports. Qureshi, who was working on a Channel 4 documentary, was taken prisoner along with two Pakistani former intelligence officers - one of whom was subsequently murdered by his captors - and a driver. There is no word on the fate of the driver or of Colonel Imam, a well-known former ISI officer who claims to have trained many of the leaders of the Afghan Taliban in guerrilla tactics.
The other ISI officer, Khalid Khwaja, was shot and dumped outside the town of Mir Ali on 28 April. Days before he had been shown in a videotape 'confessing' to being an American spy.
The group responsible for the kidnaps and killing called itself the Asian Tigers, but was in fact a splinter group from the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a notorious sectarian group that originated in the Punjab. They were also known as the Punjabi Taliban, even though their ranks included some discredited members of the Mahsud tribe from Waziristan.
Two weeks ago, the leader of the Asian Tigers, Usman Punjabi, was killed along with five of his followers in a shoot-out with rivals in a dispute over an Arab widow in the Dandy Darpakhel area of North Waziristan. It is likely that Qureshi's release is connected to this event, which effectively destroyed the Asian Tigers as an organisation.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, it has been reported that Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, who had been held captive for five months, was freed on Monday after using his guard's new phone to send a Twitter message. Interesting to note that his captors were from Hezb-e-Islami, but pretended they were from the Taliban.
Update: On Friday it was reported that Qureshi's driver, Rustam Khan, has also been released by the kidnap gang that had been holding them and Col. Imam. Still no word on the fate of Col. Imam.

Punjabi Taliban leader killed in shootout

A chorus of reports suggests that Usman Punjabi, leader of the Asian Tigers or Punjabi Taliban, and five of his followers were killed in a gunbattle with Mahsud tribal militants in a dispute over an Arab widow in the Dandy Darpakhel area of North Waziristan on Saturday.
The Asian Tigers are the group that killed former Pakistan airforce and ISI officer Khalid Khwaja earlier this year and are still said to be holding another former ISI officer and a British journalist, Asad Qureshi, who were kidnapped at the same time.
According to the AKI news agency, tension mounted between the Punjabis and local Mahsud tribal militants after an Arab was killed in a drone strike. The Mahsuds took the rich Arab widow into their custody and began making arrangements to get her married off to one of their kinsmen.
Anxious not to be left off the list of potential suitors, Usman's group insisted the woman should be allowed to make the decision herself - a rare example of jihadis allowing a woman to make a decision.
On Saturday after breakfast - which would have been before dawn during Ramadan - militants from the Mahsuds and the Punjabis gathered in a local school in Dandy Darpakhel to try to resolve the issue. The argument became so fierce that both parties pulled out their guns and opened fire. Eight people were killed in total - six Punjabis and two Mahsuds. "We have killed the spy', the Mahsud tribesmen cried after killing Usman Punjabi. Another account of the dispute, which differs in some details, can be read here.
Usman's group, which split from the equally sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is not universally popular in the tribal areas or with the Afghan Taliban fighters, particularly since the Asian Tigers refused to release the former ISI officer, Colonel Imam, when instructed to do so by Mullah Omar. The fate of Colonel Imam and Asad Qureshi is unknown.
From this report and the two that preceded it on this blog, it is clear that all is not well between the 'Brothers'. They are killing more of their own than their enemies. All in the name of Islam.