Bin Laden ordered Massood's killing: Taliban official

Osama bin Laden personally ordered the assassination of Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood just days before the September 11 attacks, a former senior Taliban official has said.

It was the first time a Taliban insider has talked about the terror mastermind's role in the murder.

Massood, military commander of the Northern Alliance, was killed on September 9 when two suicide attackers posing as TV reporters blew up a bomb during an interview in Takhar province.

Mullah Mohammed Khaksar, the former Taliban deputy interior minister, said bin Laden had diverted the two suicide bombers from a trip to Indonesia and personally sent them on the mission.

Khaksar said that on September 9 he had gone to the home of Taliban Interior Minister Abdul Razzak for a wake.

Razzak, who has eluded capture by the US-led coalition, had contacts with bin Laden, and two Saudis that Khaksar believed to be al-Qaida members were at the wake.

Khaksar said the two Saudis, whom he did not identify, told him of bin Laden's role and assured him that Massood was dead, although the Northern Alliance had withheld confirmation of his death for 48 hours until a successor could be chosen.

"They said `No, believe me he is gone,"' Khaksar said, referring to Massood. "They also said that he was killed by two Arabs who were supposed to go to Indonesia but were ordered to go to Massood and kill him. The order came from Osama. He cancelled their trip to Indonesia."

The US has said it believes bin Laden had knowledge of the plot to kill Massood before it happened, but has not said what level of involvement he had in the assassination.

There has been wide speculation that bin Laden may have killed Massood to ingratiate himself further with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar to ensure his protection if Washington retaliated for the attacks he knew were only days away in the US.

Khaksar, who broke with the Taliban after the fall of Kabul in November, said the Taliban leadership was convinced bin Laden was behind the September 11 attacks. At the time, he said, al-Qaida seemed invincible.

"Their morale was high," Khaksar said. "They believed Osama was strong because the world was afraid of him."