CIA Missile Misses Afghan Chief

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2002

(AP) The CIA fired a missile from an unmanned Predator in hopes of killing a former Afghan warlord who was plotting to overthrow the new government and was threatening American troops, officials said Thursday.

Former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a hardline Islamic group, was targeted Monday near the capital, Kabul, but the missile missed him, defense officials said on condition of anonymity. The strike is believed to have killed some of Hekmatyar's followers.

CIA officials declined comment.

An official of the Afghan Defense Ministry, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that Hekmatyar was not in the Kabul area.

Hekmatyar had been making plans to strike the interim Afghan government of Hamid Karzai — and perhaps Karzai himself — one Pentagon official said. He also wanted to target U.S. troops, in Afghanistan for seven months to rout out Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters and Taliban figures that supported the terrorist network.

Although he has been a strident critic of the U.S. role in Afghanistan, he was a major recipient of U.S. weapons and support during the war against Soviet occupiers in the 1980s.

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