Kabul: Rally to protest against Rabbanis assassination held

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Kabul: Rally to protest against Rabbanis assassination held

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Hundreds of Afghans protest in Kabul Tuesday to denounce the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani.

27 September,2011 02:43 pm

It was the first protest of its kind since Rabbani, a key leader of the 1980s anti-Soviet resistance and President Hamid Karzais top envoy in peace efforts with the Taliban, was killed by a suicide bomber last week.Angry, mainly Tajik supporters shouted death to Pakistan, death to terrorists and death to the Taliban -- blaming the Pashtun-dominated militia for the killing, an AFP photographer said.There have been fears that the assassination of Rabbani, president during Afghanistans 1992-96 civil war, could stoke renewed conflict in a nation where historical emnity runs deep between Pashtuns and rival ethnic groups.Rabbani was buried on Friday in chaotic scenes, with thousands of people swarming around his coffin as it was interred on a hill overlooking Kabul.Tuesdays protest was organised by Karzais former spy chief, Amrullah Saleh, another Tajik and key figure in the Northern Alliance which fought the Taliban in the 1990s and of which Rabbani was political leader.Demonstrators carried pictures of other key Northern Alliance figures slain by the Taliban in recent months, including General Mohammad Daud Daud, the police commander of northern Afghanistan who was killed in June.Many leaders of the Northern Alliance, mostly Tajiks, are now in government but increasing numbers are speaking out against Karzais efforts to talk peace with the Taliban following Rabbanis death.There are around 140,000 US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan fighting a bloody, Taliban-led insurgency.