ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Maulvi Mohammed Nabi Mohammedi, an Afghan militia leader who battled the Soviets and visited the White House in the 1980s, died Monday in Pakistan, a news agency reported. He was 82.
The Afghan Islamic Press, an agency based in Pakistan with ties to Afghanistan, said Mohammedi will be buried Tuesday in his homeland.
Mohammedi's group, Harakat-e-Inqilab Islami Afghanistan, was one of seven Afghan guerrilla groups supported by the United States and other Western nations to wage an independence war against the invading Soviet Union during the 1980s.
The Afghans waged a proxy Cold War battle between Washington and Moscow, beginning when the Red Army marched into Afghanistan in 1979. For 10 years, the army struggled to subdue the Afghan resistance but failed.
Mohammedi was among Afghan leaders who met President Reagan at the White House during that war. Reagan called the rebel leaders "freedom fighters."
The Red Army withdrew in 1989 after tens of thousands of its soldiers were killed.
In 1992, the pro-Moscow government in Kabul, the Afghan capital, collapsed and the U.S.-backed Islamic insurgents, including rebels loyal to Mohammedi, took power. But they quickly turned their weapons on each other and killed 50,000 Kabul residents, most of them civilians.
In 1996, the Taliban threw out the guerrilla government. Mohammedi, a conservative Islamic leader, maintained good relations with the Taliban although he never joined their government.
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