October 28, 2001	Sunday	Shaba'an 10, 1422

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PESHAWAR, Oct 27: The United States called off a rescue operation to save Commander Abdul Haq after it became apparent that it was too risky to land a helicopter on a nearby former Soviet landing spot, Haq’s close friend, James Ritchie told a group of journalists here on Saturday.

“He was on a horse, when the firing started and the horse went berserk. They were in the middle of the canyon. It happened to be that they were next to a hilltop that the Russian used as a landing spot. I called Washington to see if he can get rescue. We called back and forth and it became apparent that they were not getting a helicopter in there. I understood. It was risky. They were not sure what the Taliban had,” Ritchie said.

A close friend of Commander Abdul Haq, James Ritchie who stayed at his friend’s house in Peshawar gave an interesting insight and narrated in detail the situation that led to the capture of the key anti-Taliban commander. The 44-year-old former trader from Chicago said that he had met Abdul Haq in 1998 in Bonn and was impressed by him. “We became close friends.”

Ritchie was five months old when his father taught engineering in Kabul in the early 1960s. He remained there with his parents until he was four but later returned to visit them in the 1970s. He also produced two videos on the so-called Rome and Bonn peace process regarding Loya Jirga in Afghanistan and had sent copies to senators and congressmen.

Ritchie said that he talked to Abdul Haq 10 times before they were captured. “We were on the phone with him all night long as they were going down.” He said that there were several instances during the trip when they (Haq’s men) were confronted but they refused to fight. The Taliban, he said, continued to bring in men and they became hemmed in. “They decided to leave, going through a mountain pass when they were ambushed. That’s how they were captured.”

He said that Haq had finally decided to come back to Peshawar when they came across an encampment of about 30 to 40 Taliban and Arabs which, he thought, could have been overcome had they had arms. He insisted that Haq was virtually unarmed with a group of about 19 men, four Kalashnikovs and as many satellite phones. “The Taliban had them hemmed in from the back.

He said Haq and his group was on a steep hill, him riding a horse while his 22-year-old nephew, Izzatullah, was top of the hill, on a former Soviet landing spot. Bitter that the US had always left Haq hanging out dry, Ritchie said that the US did throw a single bomb on a Taliban convoy but it was several miles away to cause any impact and that too after he had been captured.