SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) - Just days beforehe died when a Taliban militant detonated a bomb hidden in his turban,Burhanuddin Rabbani was trying to persuade Islamic scholars to issue areligious edict banning suicide bombings.
The former president's 29-year-old daughter said in aninterview that her father died shortly after he spoke at a conference on"Islamic Awakening" in Tehran.
"Right before he was assassinated, he talked about thesuicide bombing issue," Fatima Rabbani, who had watched a replay of herfather's speech on television, told Reuters. "He called on all Islamicscholars in the conference to release a fatwa. You know: in Islam killingyourself is forbidden."
Several Taliban officials were present at the two-day eventwhich brought together some 600 Islamic scholars. Rabbani did not sit with themat the same table.
A former leader of a powerful mujahideen party during theSoviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Rabbani was chosen last Octoberby Afghan President Hamid Karzai to head the High Peace Council, created tonegotiate peace with the Taliban.
Fatima, who had lived in the United Arab Emirates since1997, said she was planning to set up a foundation in her father's memory toteach young Afghans that killing civilians contradicted Islamic values.
"We're thinking to basically raise awareness and teachAfghans the real Islam, something that my father had always encouraged theyouth to do," she said, sitting next to her brother, Shuja, in theirfamily's villa in an affluent neighborhood in the UAE emirate Sharjah.
Rabbani, was the most prominent surviving leader of theethnic Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance of fighters and politicians that drovethe Taliban from Kabul in 2001. He served as president in the 1990s when rivalmujahideen factions waged war for control of the country after the Sovietwithdrawal.
PEACE WAS POSSIBLE
Fatima, who is doing a Masters degree in post conflictstudies and development at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London(SOAS), said those who plotted her father's death wanted to cripple peaceefforts.
"Killing my father sent out a really loud message, veryloud and clear to us that they do not want peace," she said, adding thatRabbani had said after meeting Pashtun leaders in Kandahar, birthplace of theTaliban movement, that the "idea of peace was very possible."
"He spent 45 to 50 years of his life just devoted toAfghanistan, to bring peace to Afghanistan," Fatima said.
It was unclear how far his efforts to make peace with theTaliban went. Fatima said he had suggested to her that the majority of AfghanTaliban were keen to join the process, but the Pakistani branch of the groupopposed it.
"They are kind of in a lose-lose situation where theywant to join the peace process but at the same time if they do, they won't besupported by the Pakistan Taliban," she said.
Her brother, Shuja, 30, said some Taliban elements wanted toblock the peace talks when they saw a growing interest among the group'smembers to reintegrate into Afghani society.
"They must have reached such a point of desperationthat they had to carry out an assassination at this level to just try and put astop to this process altogether," said Shuja, who works at Afghanistan'scentral bank.
Shuja, who was at home when Rabbani was killed but wasunharmed, said Pakistan was refusing to cooperate in the assassination probe, adecision he criticized. Islamabad has rejected allegations that its spy agencywas behind the killing.
"If the Pakistan government believes that things don'tlead to their soil then why avoid Afghan cooperation with them?" Shujasaid. "To so blatantly avoid any kind of cooperation, that just raises somore questions."