Unmasking the Killer of An Anti-Taliban Leader

By Bruce Crumley

As members of the Northern Alliance make plans to join in a new ruling coalition for post-Taliban Afghanistan, a fog of mystery has remained over the murder of their onetime leader. But as first reported on TIME.com French police have learned the identity of one of the two assassins of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the former commander of the Northern Alliance, who was slain by two suicide bombers posing as journalists on Sept. 9. The alleged killer is Abedessatar Dahman, a Tunisian who immigrated to Belgium and became part of a radical Islamic group with links to al-Qaeda.

The breakthrough, investigators tell TIME, came a week after the Nov. 26 arrests of 16 men in France and Belgium suspected of providing logistical support for extremist Islamic organizations. One of the suspects held in France, a Tunisian named Adel Tebourski, told investigators he recognized Dahman, a fellow Tunisian who lived in Belgium, from news coverage that included photos of Massoud's killers. "These two were close, and they go back a long way," a French justice official said. Tebourski told police both he and Dahman were members of a radical group that played a major role in sending new recruits to Afghanistan and providing false documents and other support to those returning to Europe to form terror cells. He said he bought the airline tickets and obtained the fake Belgian passport that Dahman used to get to Afghanistan last year.

What Tebourski claims not to know is whether Dahman went to Afghanistan to take part in the Massoud killing, or whether it was only after he arrived in Afghanistan that he was tapped for the deadly mission.

--By Bruce Crumley