Opposition Leader Masoud Is Mourned

Thousands of people gathered Sunday in a small village in Afghanistan’s mighty Hindu Kush mountain range to bury opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masoud, who died from wounds suffered in a suicide attack against him.

Supporters of Masoud’s Northern Alliance shouted slogans against the ruling Taliban militia and also condemned Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and the Washington area, which U.S. officials suspect were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, the Islamic militant who has been given sanctuary by the Taliban.

The opposition is ready to support any U.S. actions against the Taliban, said Northern Alliance spokesman Abdullah--who uses only one name--in an interview broadcast Sunday on Russia’s state RTR television.

“If the United States is about to show a reaction against terrorists and their collaborators, they should consult us and see . . . how effective our support and our cooperation would be,” he said.

“Definitely, we expect a reaction” to the attacks in the U.S.--”a military reaction,” Abdullah added. “I think the aim--the sole purpose of that military reaction--should be destruction of the terrorists’ camps.

“The whole people here are against the Taliban.”

Masoud was buried in his home village of Basarak in the Panjshir Valley, north of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

The opposition said Masoud died Saturday from wounds suffered in a Sept. 9 suicide bombing that they say was ordered by the Taliban and Bin Laden; other reports said he died earlier in the week. He was 48.

A veteran guerrilla commander, Masoud was dubbed the “Lion of Panjshir” for his military prowess defending the valley against the former Soviet Union during its decade-long war in Afghanistan. He later held the valley against the Taliban.

Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and Masoud rode triumphantly into Kabul on a tank in 1992.

Masoud was defense minister in the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who attended Sunday’s funeral and condemned the terrorist attacks in the U.S., opposition spokesman Wasuddin Salik said in a telephone interview from the Panjshir.

Rabbani, whose government ruled Afghanistan from 1992 until it was ousted by the Taliban in 1996, also spoke of the need to eradicate terrorist training camps in the country.

“The Taliban tried to scare us and break us, cruelly killing our military leader, but they didn’t succeed,” Rabbani was quoted as saying by Russia’s Itar-Tass news service. He accused Bin Laden of involvement in Masoud’s death.

Masoud’s death was a major blow to the anti-Taliban front. He had moved to rally warring factions against the Taliban, forming an alliance that has fought to prevent the Taliban from gaining full control of Afghanistan. The Taliban now controls about 95% of the country.

Abdullah said any strategy to tackle the Taliban should start with neighboring Pakistan, which he accused of arming and supporting the strict Islamic regime.

“If the United States of America is able to stop the flow of support, arms and ammunition to the Taliban from Pakistan, I think this is half the job.”

In the attack on Masoud, two men posing as journalists detonated a bomb that may have been hidden in a TV camera while they interviewed him in northern Afghanistan. The blast also killed both bombers and a Masoud spokesman. One bomber was from Morocco and the other was from Tunisia, Masoud’s followers said.