Slaying of Afghan peace negotiator Rabbani remains a mystery

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan— Mourners thronged the streets of the capital Wednesday near the home of slain Afghan peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani, while the mystery deepened as to who was behind his assassination a day earlier.

Rabbani's death in a suicide bombing cast a perhaps irreversible pall over prospects for drawing the Taliban into negotiations, even though the peace commission he headed had made little headway in the year since its creation. That in turn could hamper Western plans to wind down the combat mission of the NATO force by 2014.