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CNN Live Sunday

Afghan Opposition Leader Betrayed, Says Colleague

Aired October 28, 2001 - 15:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY,CNN ANCHOR: A former colleague of Abdul Haq says that the Afghan opposition leader was apparently betrayed while on a covert mission in Afghanistan. Haq and two others were reportedly executed on Friday by the Taliban. Sources tell CNN that Haq was buried in an Afghan town near the city of Jalalabad earlier today.

CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon, in the meantime has been covering the reaction to Haq's death among Afghan refugees and exiles in neighboring Pakistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Prayers for a man executed by the Taliban. Friends, relatives, and comrades-in-arms from various wars, a constant flow through Abdul Haq's Peshawar home.

JAMES RICHIE, FRIEND OF ABDUL HAQ: It is a tremendous loss as a personal friend.

MACKINNON: The mourners include James Richie, who describes himself a businessman who lived in Afghanistan as a child. In recent years he has worked with Abdul Haq and also helped him financially. He was also the last person to talk to him.

RICHIE: He took off into the night to escape to Hisarak (ph) and were traveling on a trail and ran into a band of Talbs that had blocked the way that opened fire on them. And they all scattered in the rocks and that is when they called...

MACKINNON: Richie then called this man -- Robert Mcfarland, Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.

RICHIE: I got a hold of DOD and were able to round up some support. It took quite a few hours for them to get some support there. We were hoping that possibly they could get a helicopter in.

MACKINNON: The U.S. military did sends an armed surveillance drone. RICHIE: I want to say for the record that this man received no help from the U.S. government. This includes, and I feel like we have left him hanging in the lurch on numerous occasions.

MACKINNON: But out in the Peshawar neighborhoods, where many Afghans have settled to escape two decades of war, we discovered that many people agreed with the Taliban's claim that Abdul Haq was a spy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he is working for Americans, especially.

MACKINNON (on camera): He is working for America?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MACKINNON: How do you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE) especially in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they are thinking they are taking the money from Americans and to give the secret things to America about the places of Osama they are (UNINTELLIGIBLE) .

MACKINNON: But other anti-Taliban Afghan leaders say Taliban efforts to paint their movement as part of a CIA gambit will not work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We have full confidence in our people that this is not the mentality of the majority of the people of Afghanistan.

MACKINNON: Regardless of what the truth may be, the Taliban's claims that Abdul Haq was a U.S. spy, will make it more difficult, observers say, for the opposition to prove to the Afghan people that they are not United States puppets.

Rebecca MacKinnon, CNN, Peshawar, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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