Hekmatyar

CIA missile misses warlord

WALTER PINCUS, THE WASHINGTON POST

Originally published Friday, May 10, 2002

The CIA fired a missile from an unmanned Predator aircraft over Afghanistan on Monday in an attempt to kill a warlord who has vowed to attack U.S. service personnel and oust the interim Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, according to administration sources.

The targeting of a meeting of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his top aides outside Kabul was based on information he was plotting attacks against Americans, officials said.

Hekmatyar is a Pashtun who, as leader of a hard-line Islamic party, Islamist Hezb-e-Islami, has frequently changed loyalties over the past 20 years. Anti-Americanism has been one of his few long-lasting positions, sources said. U.S. officials and Afghanistan's interim leadership allege Hekmatyar has ties to al-Qaida.

The CIA missile strike against Hekmatyar represented an escalation in a confrontation that's been brewing for the past two months between the United States and Hekmatyar. It came a week after British forces established a field operating base on Hekmatyar's home turf of Logar province, to the southeast of Kabul.

Hekmatyar's presence in the area worries the U.S. military because of the threat it presents to the weak central government in the capital and because it's in the same region as U.S.-led military operations against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

CIA operators of the Predator were trying to hit "a group of people from his organization, not specifically aiming to kill Hekmatyar," a senior administration official said. "Sadly," the official added, "he survived."

The attack was planned without any consultation with the Karzai government, one administration source said.

Hekmatyar returned to Afghanistan in February after years of exile in Iran. He'd been asked to leave by Iran, which was about to play host to Karzai and his senior Cabinet members. On the eve of Karzai's visit, Hekmatyar called for the removal of the interim leader and for Afghans to attack Americans.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

back to Terror in America index