2000, Namangani was sentenced to death, along with Yoʻldosh, by Uzbekistan following a trial in absentia for involvement in the 1999 Tashkent bombings. According to the United States Department of State, the trial "failed to conform to international standards for the protection of the human rights of the defendants", and specifically the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Namangani withdrew to the IMU's base in Mazar-i-Sharif in October 2000. At the time, he commanded a capable, multinational force of 2,000 Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, Chechen and Uyghur fighters—the latter from the Xinjiang autonomous region of China. In December, Namangani led some three hundred fighters into Tajikistan, and to Tavildara, once more. However, following intense pressure from Karimov and the international community, members of the Tajikistani government once again convinced him to return to Afghanistan, which he did again in January 2001—this time through an airlift conducted by Russian transport helicopters. Before his departure, he married his second wife, a Tajik widow of a fighter killed during the Tajikistani Civil War and mother of two sons. The IMU resumed offensive operations in the summer of 2001, with locally based sleeper cells attacking two military posts on the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan border and a Kyrgyz television transmitter in late July. The attacks suggested that Namangani wielded "a new, independent command structure that could operate without his presence". By late 2001, Namangani led a force of 3,000–5,000 fighters, who trained with and fought alongside the Taliban against local and foreign anti-Taliban forces during the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States. Death Namangani was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001. Rumors of his death started in mid-November 2001 but were inconsistent about the circumstances, location and timing. General Abdul Rashid (Abdurashid) Dustum of the Northern Alliance claimed Namangani died during fighting for the city of Kunduz. The Taliban, however, claimed he died in an airstrike in or near Kabul, the Afghan capital, and was buried secretly in Logar Province. Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir reported that Namangani died on 6 November 2001 in Mazar-i-Sharif and was eulogised, together with Mohammed Atef, in a speech by Osama bin Laden on 8 November 2001. In late December, in a joint press conference with Karimov, Rahmon claimed having "accurate and reliable information" of Namangani's death. General Tommy Franks, who led the American invasion of Afghanistan, stated in a press conference in Tashkent on 24 January