text: Suspects Suspects in the assassination include competing Islamic militia leaders, such as Hekmatyar, as well as the CIA, the Mossad, and KHAD. Following the assassination the President of Afghanistan Mohammad Najibullah criticized Arab foreign fighters telling them to go do "jihad closer to home". Najibullah was a very active opponent of Wahhabism which he saw as contradictory to traditional Afghan Values. Former FBI agent Ali Soufan mentioned in his book, The Black Banners, that Ayman al-Zawahiri is suspected of being behind the assassination. Azzam's son-in-law, Abdullah Anas, accused the Egyptian Islamic Jihad of killing his father-in-law for issuing a fatwa that "once the Russian were ejected from Afghanistan, it would not be permissible for us to take sides."
  Several associates of Azzam suspect the killing was part of a purge of those who favored moving the jihad to Palestine. In March 1991, Mustapha Shalabi, who ran the Maktab al-Khidmat, the Services Bureau in New York and was also "said to prefer a 'Palestine next' strategy, turned up dead in his apartment." He was replaced by Wadih el-Hage, who later became bin Laden's personal secretary.
  Osama bin Laden has also been accused of being a suspect in the murder, but seems to have remained on good terms with Azzam during this time.  However, it was reported that Bin Laden and Azzam also had a major dispute on where Al Qaeda should focus their operations.  Bin Laden favored using the organization to train fighters in various parts of the world while Azzam favored keeping the training camps in Afghanistan. Azzam also objected to Bin Laden's favoring of Hekmatyar.
  Yet another actor accused of the assassination is the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, an active opponent of Wahhabism. In 2009, Jordanian double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi claimed knowledge of Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate cooperation with the CIA to set up the assassination.