Afghan Taliban issues statement quoting Haqqani group leader

Omar’s family said in an audio statement released on August 2 that it had not pledged allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mansur, whom the Taliban has announced as Omar’s successor.

More, discussions and interviews I had with well known Salafist Jihadist leaders Abu Mohamad al Maqdisi and Abu Qatada also confirmed to me, from their own sources and channels that Mullah Omar did not know about the attacks first hand and did not approve of them when he was asked for his permission.

He said the Taliban leadership will make all efforts to maintain internal unity at all cost. “The Afghan government is upset on the delay of talks but is committed to the continuation of the negotiation”, a senior Afghan official said.

The selection of Mansoor, who has been the insurgency’s de facto leader for several years, occurred quickly given the Taliban’s byzantine command structure across numerous power centers in several Pakistani cities. The new leader called for unity amid reports of splits among different Taliban factions.

He has powerful rivals within the Taliban who are strongly opposed to peace talks with the Afghan government, while some are unhappy at the thought he may have deceived them for more than a year about Omar’s death. New peace talks have been abruptly postponed, and the Taliban official named to replace Omar has just vowed to keep its religious war going in a desperate bid to unify the increasingly fractured movement.

The Taliban also announced his deputies – Sirajuddin, who has a 10mn US bounty on his head, and Haibatullah Akhundzada, former head of the Taliban courts. Mullah Mansoor is widely seen as having pushed the Taliban into the negotiations at Pakistan’s bidding. He said the vote took place among a small clique of Mansoor’s supporters and demanded a re-election that includes all Taliban commanders, including those fighting in Afghanistan.

The statement said the next leader should be appointed on the recommendations of leading Islamic scholars “and those mujahideen who had laid down the base of the Emirate of Afghanistan through their sacrifices”.

If Mullah Mansoor fails to hold the movement together, the ultimate beneficiary could be the Islamic State group, which has established a small but growing presence in Afghanistan over the past year, in part by recruiting disillusioned Taliban fighters. Mansoor developed his relationship with Pakistani intelligence services during the 1980s while fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and served as minister of aviation from 1996 to 2001. The Taliban denied recent rumors that Haqqani, like Mullah Omar, had died in secret.

Manan said: “We have not declared allegiance to anyone and will never do it because of the differences over the new leader“. But the Taliban has simultaneously intensified its attacks on Afghan security forces, expanding its footprint into the previously peaceful northern provinces after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and U.S. troops ended their combat mission and handed over security to local forces at the end of a year ago.

Haqqani is the leader of the Haqqani Network, a terrorist group based in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas that is believed to have conducted many bloody attacks inside Afghanistan.

The statement said Ghani spoke to officials by video link from Germany, where he is recovering from foot surgery. “This is an attempt to show to the common Taliban fighter that a legendary commander like Haqqani backs Mullah Mansoor”, he said.