Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani has been killed > Afghan High Peace Council Chief Burhanuddin Rabbani has been killed with some other people in a bomb attack in Kabul, official sources.Mr. Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed at his home by a suicide attacker who officials believe had hidden away a bomb in his turban.
He was meeting members of the Taliban at the time. The council leads Afghan efforts to discuss with the Taliban.
Rabbani was a former president of Afghanistan and also lead the main political opposition in the country.
A senior adviser to the peace council, Masoom Stanakzai, is also thought to have been seriously wounded in the attack.
President Karzai said: “This is a sad day for us in Afghanistan but a day of unity and day of continuity for our efforts.”
Abdullah Abdullah, the leader of the opposition in the Afghan parliament, said Mr Rabbani’s killing was “a big loss for all the people of Afghanistan”, describing the former president as a man who “strove until his last breath to bring peace”.
Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) condemned the attack, with Isaf commander Gen John R Allen saying that “the face of the peace initiative has been attacked”.
Rabbani was formerly leader of a powerful mujahideen party during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and served as president in the 1990s when mujahideen factions waged war for control of the country after the Soviet withdrawal.
The assassination comes a week after a 20-hour gun and grenade attack that on Kabul’s diplomatic enclave by insurgents, and three suicide bomb attacks on other parts of the city — together the longest-lasting and most wide-ranging assault on the city.
Last week’s siege was the third major attack on the Afghan capital since June and included three suicide bombing in other parts of the city. At least five policemen and 11 civilians were killed.
