Mullah Najibullah - Too Radical for the Taliban

Mullah Najibullah: Too Radical for the Taliban - Newsweek and The Daily Beast: "Mullah Najibullah, a 22-year-old Taliban subcommander in the north, was determined to keep fighting despite the odds. Making his way south toward the capital, where combat was most intense, he decided to take a last stand with a handful of his fighters just outside Kabul on the Shomali Plain. Surrounded and outgunned, some of his men suggested they try to escape. Najibullah refused. “I won’t do it. I will continue fighting and be the last Taliban leaving Kabul,” he recalls saying. However, as he drove into the capital one night in a Land Cruiser full of fighters, Najibullah got caught in a heavy firefight at a checkpoint. His brother-in-law was killed, and Najibullah took a bullet in the leg. Though wounded, he managed to escape and flee to his home in Zabul province, hundreds of miles away. Undaunted, he hid and recovered from his wounds while organizing his next move."