Taliban 'kill opposition leader'

The Taliban today claimed to have executed a key opposition leader who they captured in Afghanistan.

Abdul Haq, 43, a former guerrilla commander living in exile, was understood to have been caught 20 miles south of Kabul. His family in Pakistan said he had gone to Afghanistan on a peace mission.

If the reports of his death are true, it represents a major blow to the strategy of trying to persuade Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group, the Pashtuns, to switch allegiance from the Taliban.

Opposition groups are working to bring back ex-king Mohammad Zahir Shah to power.

Taliban information ministry official Abdul Himat Hanan said today. "The Taliban have killed Abdul Haq along with two other people." The claim followed reports from a Taliban news agency that Haq was shot dead while trying to escape with two supporters.

Earlier, Abdul Sattar Sirat, a senior adviser to the ex-king, said: "His capture was a shock to us. He did not go to Afghanistan to fight. Haq went there to make contact with tribal leaders and Afghan elders to put forward a peace proposal."

Another aide close to Zahir Shah, dismayed by news of the capture, had held out little hope that the Taliban would listen to outside appeals for clemency. "They aren't going to listen to anyone. Life for them isn't important. They have no pity. These people don't forgive," he said.

Ex-king Zahir Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since being ousted from the Afghan throne in 1973, is seeking to draw Afghanistan's varied warring factions together in a broad-based government of national unity to replace the Taliban.

Haq recently visited Rome to meet Zahir Shah and fully endorsed his plan, giving the project muchneeded impetus.

In an interview with the Evening Standard three weeks ago, Haq made an impassioned plea to Tony Blair to halt American plans for air strikes on Afghanistan. He said: ?The Taliban is collapsing from within ? if the missiles strike, this will be delayed, even halted.?

Haq?s supporters are due to meet in Turkey this weekend for a round of talks, which the ex-king hopes will lead to the creation of a new government.

Many Afghan exiles, fearful of a power vacuum should the Taliban collapse, are pinning their hopes on Zahir Shah to establish a credible alternative.

In the Pakistan city of Peshawar, Haq?s nephew Mohammed Yousuf said the reports of his death were untrue. ? I know that he is alive,? he added.

Asked how he knew his uncle was alive, he replied: ?We don?t have any source but we know that he?s alive.? He refused to elaborate.

The nephew said Haq went to Afghanistan six days ago along with six or seven people, most of them his relatives.

Meanwhile, three warehouses of the International Committee of the Red Cross were ablaze today after being hit during air raids on Kabul.

?It has happened again. Huge explosions took place and three of our warehouses are on fire now, ? said ICRC spokesman Mario Musa.

He said he had no immediate report of casualties but he expected very few people to be in the warehouses.

Mr Musa said the warehouses had food supplies, tents, tarpaulins, blankets and other aid supplies intended for the people of Kabul.