The implication is that the West does not want peace in the country but seeks to promote disorder there in order to justify the continued US military presence.
The Fars news agency, which is believed linked to the Pasdaran, quoted unnamed Iranian sources as saying the US and UK embassies in Kabul were connected to the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a pre-Taliban president who chairs the country’s peace council.
The “informed” sources alleged that while Rabbani was visiting his family in Sharjah, after attending the Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran, Afghan officials were urged by the two embassies to summon Rabbani back to Kabul to negotiate with Taliban emissaries.
“He had no intention to return [to Afghanistan] so soon,” the so-called informed sources told Fars.
“The person who contacted Rabbani stressed that the US and British ambassadors to Kabul very much insisted that he must attend that meeting,” Fars quoted its source.
When he returned to his home in Kabul September 20, he was killed by a bomb in the turban of one of his visitors claiming to represent the Taliban.
Afghan officials have said Rabbani returned to Kabul upon the request of President Hamid Karzai, who had received seemingly credible reports from people claiming to be Taliban representatives and calling for a meeting on an urgent basis. The Afghans did not mention any involvement by the US and British embassies.
Reuters initially reported the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack, but the group later backtracked saying it was reserving comment—stopping short of rejecting the reports outright.
Rabbani’s assassination has put the already-floundering peace process into near-total disarray and has deepened a state of distrust among Afghan leaders, some of whom—like the warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf—refuses to leave his house even to attend sessions of parliament. Rabbani’s fellow Tajik leaders from the Northern Alliance, who have always opposed the talks, feel validated as to the futility of negotiations with the Taliban and have called for stronger military action against them.
The Iranian ambassador to Kabul, Fada-Husain Maleki, told the Mehr news agency that Afghanistan’s situation after Rabbani’s assassination is volatile, and that the US and its allies should be held responsible for the state of uncertainty and insecurity.
Meanwhile, the commander of the Basij, Brig. Gen. Muhammad-Reza Naqdi, said the assassination will strengthen unity among Afghans and accelerate the pullout of the foreign forces led by the United States.
“The assassination of martyr Rabbani on the anniversary of the martyrdom of the brave and zealous commander, martyr Ahmad-Shah Masud, will lead to a more rapid withdrawal of the Americans from the free Afghanistan and increased unity among the Afghan people,” Naqdi said in a statement, which did not gibe with the assertion of US-UK involvement in the assassination.