Mas'ud assassination probe welcomed

Afghan and international human rights activists have welcomed the formation of a special commission by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate the killing of the Afghan resistance leader, Ahmad Shah Mas'ud, in September 2001. However, they also called for broader investigations into past human rights abuses. "I think the new decree by the government on investigating of the assassination of the late Mas'ud is a good beginning, which means that the government has this willingness to deal with past crimes," Ahmad Nader Nadery, an official of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on Tuesday. The commission will be headed by the interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, and Karzai has asked all government agencies to cooperate in the investigation. The rebel leader was assassinated two days ahead of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001, by two suicide bombers thought to have been linked to Al-Qaeda. Even though 20 months have passed, no one has been put on trial for the crime. Mas'ud was the charismatic resistance leader of the Northern Alliance or United Front, and fought against Afghanistan's former hardline Taliban regime before its demise in late 2001, following the US-led military operation against the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. For many years Mas'ud also fought against the Soviet occupation of his country in 1980s. Nadery added that AIHRC regarded the formation of the commission positively even if it was just focusing on the murder of one individual. "It gives us more confidence that the government would support any activity in bringing the perpetrators of past crimes to justice," he said. International human rights activists also saw the move as constructive. "We would encourage any impartial investigation into any kind of violence, particularly murders," Urmi Shah, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, told IRIN from London on Wednesday. "All the past human rights abuses need to be investigated, but given the 20 years of war, the Afghan justice system has been decimated and needs rebuilding," she added.