Afghan leader had words of welcome for suicide bomber

New details that emerged yesterday showed how carefully the assassins laid the groundwork for the bombing.

“We heard a boom,” said Rahamtullah Wahedyar, a member of the Afghan peace council who was in the room where the explosion occurred on Tuesday evening in Kabul.

Mr Wahedyar said that the blast knocked him to the floor. When he regained consciousness, Mr Rabbani and a top peace council official wounded in the attack had been carried out of the room. The headless body of the attacker still lay on the floor.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who also spoke about the incident yesterday, said that before he left for New York last weekend, one of his advisers, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, told him that the Taleban had a message for the Afghan peace council.

The president listened to the audio recording.

“It was not a peace message. It was a trick,” a sombre Mr Karzai told reporters in a courtyard of the presidential palace. “The messenger was the killer.”

The killing had been plotted for four months by the Afghan Taleban’s governing council, known as the Quetta Shura, named after the city in Pakistan, said Shafiqullah Tahiri, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service.

Mr Wahedyar said the council was in contact for four months with an alleged Taleban representative – a man he identified only as “Hamidullah”.

In early September, Mr Wahedyar said Hamidullah called and said: “The Taleban shura wants to officially start peace talks with the Afghan government.”

Hamidullah said, however, that the Taleban wanted to appoint someone else to deliver an important message to Mr Rabbani.

About three days later, the assassin called Mr Wahedyar and identified himself as the new Taleban envoy.

Mr Wahedyar met the assassin – identified as “Esmatullah” – at a bus station in the capital and took him to a guest house the peace council used for visitors.

The day after arriving in Kabul, Mr Stanekzai and Mr Wahedyar met the assassin in Mr Stanekzai’s office. During the meeting, the assassin handed over a computerised audio recording allegedly made by Taleban leaders that called for the removal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and an end to “moral corruption” in the country. Mr Stanekzai later shared the recording with Mr Karzai.

The assassin said he had a second recording with a “special” message for Mr Rabbani and a meeting was arranged.

Mr Wahedyar took the assassin to Mr Rabbani’s house on Tuesday afternoon. There, Mr Rabbani’s secretary said he wanted to search the visitor. Mr Wahedyar volunteered to be the first person searched.

Another member of Mr Rabbani’s staff also asked to search the bomber, but when Mr Rabbani’s secretary headed into the house, the bomber followed without being searched, Mr Wahedyar said.