Afghan Taliban swiftly execute Abdul Haq
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban executed veteran opposition commander Abdul Haq on Friday, only hours after capturing him on a mission to raise rebellion.
Soldiers of the hardline Muslim militia seized Haq, a burly Pashtun warlord who lost a foot fighting the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, as he tried to flee on horseback under cover of U.S. air strikes early on Friday.
"The Taliban have killed Abdul Haq along with two other people," an Information Ministry official, Abdul Himat Hannan, told Reuters. The others were believed to be Afghans.
"This happened on the basis of the verdict of the Ulema (Muslim clerics) that anyone who assists the United States is liable to be killed," he said.
He said Haq had a satellite phone and dollars that he had brought to distribute to people.
Afghan opposition leaders had appealed to the Taliban to spare Haq.
Taliban Education Minister Amir Muttaqi said, "The bodies of Abdul Haq and his two other friends called Haji Dawran and Izatullah will be given to their relatives."
The Taliban's intelligence chief warned earlier that leaders such as Haq who support deposed Afghan King Zahir Shah should not enter the country.
Haq was a leading figure in moves to unite Afghanistan's warring opposition groups around the king to form a broad-based government to take over from the Taliban.
He slipped into eastern Afghanistan on October 21 to try to turn Pashtun tribes against Kabul.
"We had secretly surrounded the place for two days where Haq was hiding with his supporters," said a Taliban spokesman, adding that Haq had been captured at Azra in Logar province, only 30 km (20 miles) west of Pakistan's northwestern frontier.
Haq called in U.S. air support by satellite telephone.
"U.S. helicopters bombed the Taliban to enable Haq to escape, but we were able to capture him when he tried to leave at 2:30 this morning," the Taliban spokesman said.
The airwaves crackled with congratulations as Taliban commanders radioed around to spread the news, the AIP news agency said.
Haq's execution blows a hole in the opposition's hearts-and-minds strategy of persuading Pashtuns, the main ethnic group, to switch allegiance from the Taliban to exile groups working to bring back Zahir Shah.