quote:
The Panjshir Lion livesMasoud's killing, too, may have been bin Laden's personal gift to Taliban leader Mullah Omar for the shelter that the Taliban provided al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The assassination, further, may have been the key event that sent the signal for the September 11 operation in the US. Ironically, some people argue that the only power to have profited from Masoud's killing was America itself: Washington would never have been allowed to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan if Masoud, a nationalist leader par excellence, had been in charge of the Northern Alliance's military.
(...)
During the 1990s, and especially during the time of the Taliban rule, which began in 1996, Washington never knew exactly how to deal with Masoud. But after the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents sought a meeting with Masoud in Dushanbe. The CIA wanted information on how to get to bin Laden. Masoud carefully considered all the angles, but ultimately he could not but criticize American shortsightedness. For the Bill Clinton administration, the ultimate aim was to get bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. For Masoud, the main point was to destroy the Taliban. He repeatedly stressed at the time that "without the Taliban, Osama can't do anything".
(...)
In his interview with Asia Times Online, the second-to-last in his lifetime, Masoud repeatedly portrayed al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistan as a sort of "triangle of evil". He criticized the US for basically following a Pakistani plan: try to "reform" the Taliban and concentrate on seducing Taliban "moderates" (a contradiction in terms). There were never any moderates within the Taliban. Mullah Omar was totally under the spell of bin Laden. American diplomats with knowledge of Central Asia were warning about the "Arabization" of Afghanistan. But no one in Washington was listening. The US only got the message after September 11 - and after Masoud's death.
(...)
A few days after September 11, a green MI-17 Russian helicopter showed up in Panjshir Valley. This time it was carrying CIA officials, with an official proposal. Since 1996, Masoud had tried to convince the US to smash the Taliban first, and then get bin Laden. Now, the US government was finally proposing the same thing: we need your help to smash the Taliban, because we think that this is the way to get to bin Laden. Since 1996, Masoud had fought the Taliban, asking - in vain - for weapons, supplies and money from the US and the European Union. Now, the US government was promising weapons, supplies and a lot of money.
Dat gaat me te diep sp3c, daar is het te laat voor.
quote:Vriendelijker dan de andere figuren uit Afghanistan iig. Hij liet bijvoorbeeld krijgsgevangenen leven en verzorgen, terwijl anderen er de rupsbanden van hun tanks rood mee schilderden.
Op woensdag 11 september 2002 16:22 schreef sp3c het volgende:
voor zover ik weet was die massoud zelf ook niet echt een vriendelijke knaap maar dat weet ik niet zeker
Mijn broer Tinus zeker niet; de minkukel neemt steeds ongevraagd bezit van mijn FOK!account. Beste vent wel verder, overigens: http://fotoboek.fok.nl/Tinus_O..
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