The legendary anti-Taliban guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Masood died in an Afghan hospital from wounds suffered in a suicide bomb attack this week by two Arabs, a spokesman said today.
"Yes, he sadly passed away last night and preparations for his burial will be made at some stage today," Engineer Baryalay, a spokesman for the opposition, said by satellite telephone from the opposition capital, Faizabad.
Under normal Islamic practice, the funeral for Mr Masood, who was born in 1953 and spent his entire adult life in conflict, would take place before sunset today, probably in his native Panjsher valley to the north of Kabul.
Mr Masood was the main military obstacle to the Taliban goal of rule over all of Afghanistan and his fate had been unclear ever since the announcement last Sunday that he had been the target of an assassination attempt by two Arabs posing as journalists.
The announcement ended days of uncertainty on his location and condition, although it had become increasing clear that he was badly wounded in the attack at his office near the front with the Taliban forces.
The anti-Taliban alliance has blamed the suicide bomb attack on a terrorist triangle of the Taliban, Pakistan intelligence and Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden. The assassins had the explosives either concealed in a camera or wrapped around the body of one of the men.
The attack came just two days before hijackers killed thousands of people in New York and Washington in sophisticated suicide attacks for which increasing evidence is pointing toward bin Laden, who has been given refuge by the Taliban.
Mr Masood, the chief military obstacle to the Taliban's conquest of all of Afghanistan, had been hit in the head by shrapnel. The two attackers and Mr Masood's translator were killed, and the Afghan opposition's ambassador to India seriously injured.
Mr Masood's intelligence chief, General Mohammad Fahim, had been named following the explosion as his temporary replacement but there is no opposition figure with anywhere near the same stature as a military leader.
Mr Masood was the most famous of the guerrilla leaders who battled the Soviet invasion that began late in 1979, repeatedly mauling their forces as they tried to capture his stronghold in the Panjsher valley.
He proved as formidable an enemy for the Taliban, rallying opposition forces a year ago after they appeared to be crumbling before a Taliban offensive. Over the winter, he reactivated a series of other leaders who had been knocked out of the war earlier by the Taliban militia.
But since the assassination explosion, the Taliban appear to have stepped up their attacks against Mr Masood's forces, the last cohesive military force facing the hardline Islamic group.