Who killed Burhanuddin Rabbani?

The Taliban’s statement denying involvement in the killing of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan  High Council for Peace, is coming on the third day of the incident. Evidently, Quetta Shura thoroughly checked out with the various Taliban factions before coming out with this statement. Indeed, Taliban, uncharacteristically enough, was not on message this time. They are normally the first with a claim, but this time they weren’t.

A Guardian editorial, too, makes this important point: “Rabbani’s scalp would have been high on the target of the Taliban, who have turned to killing senior Afghan leaders, but for the fact that he was also the head of the high peace council. Bombing him would be akin to bombing the talks themselves, and there was no suggestion from the Taliban leadership that this is their aim.”

Indeed, Taliban supremo Mullah Omar’s recent Eid message was widely interpreted as signifying a change of time, signalling that the future of the insurgency could lie in politics. A commentary by Ahmed Rashid is here. Another commentary by the US-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty virtually echoing Rashid’s mind is here.

A number of theories have appeared on who killed Rabbani, adding to all-round confusion, and the only good thing is that the needle of suspicion is moving by the day further and further away from the Taliban. But then, someone did order Rabbani’s killing, isn’t it? Who was it?

Continue digging deeper and deeper, and don’t allow oneself be distracted by the US’s drum-beating or sabre-rattling against Pakistan.

PM Manmohan Singh’s statement spoke volumes. He refused to rush to judgment as to whose hand it is that is red with Rabbani’s blood. Let me quote his message to Karzai:

“It is with great shock and sadness that I have learnt of the tragic death of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. This is a senseless act of terrorism which the Government and people of India condemn. I fondly recall my two meetings with Professor Rabbani in Kabul in May 2011 and in New Delhi in July 2011 during which he had shared with me his vision of peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. The best  tribute the people of Afghanistan can pay to him is to carry on with the task that he had begun — securing a peaceful and safe future for the people of Afghanistan. Please accept my deepest condolences on the tragic loss. I wish to assure Your Excellency that India stands by you and the people of Afghanistan in this hour.”

Maybe, PM will inquire from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad when they meet in New York this week. Tehran is very well clued-in as to what is happening in the name of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Besides, Tehran was Rabbani’s very last port of call, from where he headed for Sharjah to spend a few days with his family members who live there.

That is, until he was asked to rush back to Kabul by an Afghan official who conveyed a message from the US and British embassies in Kabul that they had something of extreme importance to discuss with him urgently and he should get back. Which he, alas, did.

The Iranians would know what was on Rabbani’s mind as he walked into the sunset. Most certainly, Ambassador Mohsen Pak-Ayeen would be one of them who spent time chatting up Rabbani in Tehran. That was one of the two reasons why what Ambassador Pak-Ayeen said caught my attention.

The second reason was that he was my Iranian colleague when I served as ambassador in Tashkent. Those were the tumultuous days of the Northern Alliance and the anti-Taliban resistance. Ambassador Pak-Ayeen and I became great friends — and, boy, don’t I know if there is one diplomat in our region who knows Afghanistan like the back of his hands, it is him, it is him. What he said is here.