He was meeting
members of the Taliban at the time. The council leads Afghan efforts to
negotiate with the Taliban.
Mr Rabbani is a
former president of Afghanistan and also led the main political opposition in
the country. A senior advisor to the peace council, Masoom Stanakzai, is also
thought to have been seriously wounded in the attack.
On hearing the news,
Afghan President Hamid Karzai cancelled his trip to the US mid-flight. He is
now returning to Kabul.
Mr Rabbani's
residence is in a well-to-do district of Kabul, on the edge of a high security
area close to the US embassy and the district where the Taliban launched a
20-hour attack last week, leaving 25 dead.
The attack is likely
to fuel concerns over security in the capital. Security forces have closed off
a number of streets in the district and the police are out in force, reports
say.
Mr Rabbani and his
security advisor, were meeting two members of the Taliban at the time of the
blast.
"Two Taliban
went with Mr Stanakzai. No-one was checked. Shortly after that we heard an
explosion. Everyone started shouting: 'They killed Ustaad Ustaad [a term of
respect]'," a member of Mr Rabbani's household told the BBC's Bilal
Sarwary in Kabul.
Counter terror
officials have said that they assume the Taliban visitors were the suicide
attackers but add that it is still too early to draw any definite conclusions.
Controversial figure
When the High Peace
Council was set up, Mr Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan
people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace.
But many members of
the council are former warlords who spent years fighting the Taliban and their
inclusion led to doubts as to whether it could succeed in its mission.
Mr Rabbani recently
spoke at a religious conference in Iran and called on Muslim scholars to speak
out against suicide attacks.
He was ousted as
president by the Taliban in 1996. After that he became the nominal head of the
anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, made of mostly non-Pashtun ethnic groups.
When they swept back
into Kabul, backed by US forces, and toppled the Taliban in 2001, he was still
recognised by the UN as the official president of Afghanistan.
But he was a
controversial figure.
In the 1970s it was
Mr Rabbani who founded the parties that ended up becoming the Afghan mujahideen
and correspondents say that many blame him and his friends for the death and
destruction of the civil war days.
The BBC's David Loyn
in Kabul says that the Taliban have wanted Mr Rabbani dead for some time.
Indeed, our correspondent says, many were surprised when Mr Rabbani was put in
charge of peace talks.
However, our
correspondent adds, his death will not necessarily prevent peace talks from
continuing.
The killing is just
the latest in a series of assassinations of senior politicians and security
commanders across the country.
In July, President
Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at his home in Kandahar, southern
Afghanistan, by his own head of security. Two months earlier, General Daud
Daud, the top police commander in northern Afghanistan was killed in a suicide
bomb attack.
The Taliban have
claimed responsibility for most of these killings.
Burhanuddin
Rabbani
- Senior figure in the mujahideen who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s
- President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 and then again in 2001
- Senior member of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance from 1996 to 2001
- Made leader of Peace Council constituted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai tasked with negotiating with the Taliban
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