NORTH WAZIRISTAN, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, PAKISTAN – JANUARY 23, 2011 Amir Sultan Tarar, known by the nickname Colonel Imam, was a former Pakistani army officer and longtime employee of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) intelligence agency. He was born in 1944 and was approximately 66 years old at the time of his death.
Amir Sultan Tarar
Tarar played an important role in supporting Afghan mujahideen during the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. As an ISI officer, he helped train and organize Afghan fighters who fought against Soviet troops. He established contacts with a number of Islamist commanders who later became prominent figures, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Mullah Omar, the founder of the Afghan Taliban. Because of his role in supporting these militant networks, he was later described as one of the “fathers of the Taliban.”
After leaving the army, Tarar also served as Pakistan’s consul general in the Afghan city of Herat. However, his ties to the Afghan Taliban did not mean that he was part of the Pakistani Taliban. The differences between the various militant groups later became an important factor in his fate.
In March 2010, Amir Sultan Tarar traveled to North Waziristan with former ISI officer Khalid Khawaja, British-Pakistani journalist Asad Qureshi, and his driver Rustam Khan. According to available information, their trip was connected to filming a documentary about the Pakistani Taliban and victims of U.S. drone strikes. However, the group was kidnapped by militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban known as the Asian Tigers.
The fate of the individual hostages differed. Khalid Khawaja was murdered in April 2010, and his body was found near Mir Ali. Asad Qureshi was released several months later, reportedly after a large sum of money was paid for his freedom. Amir Sultan Tarar remained in captivity for nearly ten months.
The kidnappers demanded a large ransom for his release as well as the release of imprisoned militants. Sources differ on the exact amount; for example, 50 million Pakistani rupees ($180,000) was reported. However, negotiations did not lead to his release.
According to later information, Amir Sultan Tarar was executed in North Waziristan on January 23, 2011. In the first days after his disappearance, there was considerable confusion surrounding his death. Some sources claimed that he had died of a heart attack while in captivity, while others said he had been shot by his captors. Pakistani authorities were initially also unable to clarify his death with certainty. His body was later found near Mir Ali.
A more definitive picture emerged only after a video released by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on February 19, 2011. In the footage, Amir Sultan Tarar can be seen sitting on the ground while armed TTP members stand behind him. Among them was also TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud. One of the gunmen then shot Tarar several times. According to reports at the time, Hakimullah Mehsud directed the execution in the video, and TTP claimed responsibility for the killing through its spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan.
TTP accused Tarar of cooperating with the United States and Pakistani intelligence agencies. His death therefore also had symbolic significance. The man who had helped create and support networks of Afghan Islamist fighters in the 1980s and 1990s and had close ties to the early leadership of the Taliban was ultimately killed by TTP, a group that differed from the Afghan Taliban in many respects and waged an armed struggle against the Pakistani state.
The case thus clearly demonstrated how relations between militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan had changed over the years. Amir Sultan Tarar helped create an environment from which the Afghan Taliban later emerged, but his own past and connections ultimately offered him no protection from more radical Pakistani militants.
READ MORE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Imam
