Gunmen Kill Afghan Cleric Who Condemned Taliban Leaders

[Snowden]

May 30, 2005
Gunmen Kill Afghan Cleric Who Condemned Taliban Leaders

By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 29 - A senior pro-government cleric was shot dead in his office on Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar in a brazen attack by suspected Taliban supporters firing from a motorbike.

In Kabul, meanwhile, kidnappers of an Italian aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, released a videotape of her to a television station and demanded that the Italian authorities speed up negotiations for her release.

The cleric who was killed, Maulavi Abdullah Fayaz, leader of the Council of Clerics of Kandahar, was well known for his support for the government of President Hamid Karzai and his strong stance against the remnants of the Taliban leadership that continue to foment an insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Last year, he declared the Taliban's call for jihad against American forces and the Afghan government illegal and against Islamic precepts. Then, 10 days ago he gathered hundreds of clerics from 20 provinces to divest the Taliban chief, Mullah Muhammad Omar, of the title he was given during Taliban rule: leader of the faithful. The gathering was also called to declare anyone who followed his orders to be acting against Shariah, or Islamic law.

That last action may have led to his death, the police said. A Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, said members of the Taliban were responsible for the killing, Agence France-Presse reported. "He was preaching against the Taliban under the name of Islam and deserved to die," he was quoted as saying.

President Karzai called the killing an attack on Islam and on all ulema, or religious clerics. Maulavi Fayaz was "a person devoted to Islam and at the service of the Afghan people," he said in a statement.

[In a separate attack early on Monday, an explosion went off near the headquarters of the NATO security force in Kabul, The Associated Press reported. A spokeswoman for the force said there were no immediate reports of injuries.]

The cleric was in his first-floor office about 1 p.m. when gunmen in the street fired two shots through the window, killing him instantly, his deputy, Maulavi Muhammad Haq Khatib, who was in the room with him, said by telephone.

Maulavi Khatib did not blame the Taliban, instead suggesting that local warlords unhappy with their removal from power or even people connected to the government might have been responsible. He said the office was in a secure street, with police guard posts at each end.

But a senior Afghan intelligence official, who asked not to be identified because of the nature of his work, said two men in ordinary clothing fired from the main street outside the security barrier. The police saw them shoot but failed to catch them, he said.

At least two other members of the Kandahar Council of Clerics have been killed in similar incidents in the past year.

In the videotape released Sunday by the kidnappers of the Italian aid worker, Ms. Cantoni could be seen flanked by two masked gunmen aiming assault rifles at her head. Prompted by someone off camera, she gave her name and the names of her father and uncle, and stated the date - incorrectly - as "May 28, Sunday." Wearing a blue head scarf and wrapped in a brown blanket, she seemed unharmed and calm.

In a telephone call to the local television station, Tolo TV, a man who gave his name as Temur Shah, suspected of being the lead kidnapper, urged the Italian Embassy to meet his demands as soon as possible. "Clementina's health is not good," he said. "Staying with us for two weeks, or 15 days, is difficult for her."

Afghan officials have said that Ms. Cantoni was seized in an effort to force the government to release members of a criminal gang charged in a string of robberies and the kidnapping of three United Nations workers last year.

Mr. Shah has also made demands in phone calls to news media organizations, pressing for bans on alcohol and some popular television programs, as well as demanding that the government build more religious schools and provide alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers.

In a political development, elections officials announced Sunday that more than 6,000 people had come forward as candidates for Parliament and provincial councils in nationwide elections set for September. Registration for candidates closed Thursday. More than 10 percent of the hopefuls are women.

• Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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