Mohammad Akhtar Mansoor: Taliban fighters ‘worried and confused’ after death

Pakistan’s GEO TV, citing unnamed “well-informed” people, reported that the Taliban’s supreme council, made up of the most powerful members, “unanimously” chose Mullah Mansour, when it met in the Pakistani city Quetta this week, to replace Mullah Omar, whose death in 2013 was finally confirmed by the Afghan government and the group itself early this week.

The report highlighted that Mullah Omar, the secretive leader of the Taliban, spent the final years of his life in “remarkable obscurity” and his death was confirmed only by “chatter” among Taliban officials.

“When Mullah Omar became the emir, there was a huge gathering in Kandahar, significantly inside Afghanistan, that gave him legitimacy in his claim to be the leader”, said an Afghan official.

Some Taliban are also unhappy at the thought Mansour may have deceived them for over a year about Omar’s death and others accuse him of riding roughshod over the process to appoint a successor.

The reclusive one-eyed Taliban chief Mullah Omar was Afghanistan’s de facto head of state from 1996 to 2001 during Taliban rule. Both groups had great incentive to keep Mullah Omar’s death from the public and, more importantly, from rank-and-file Taliban members.

The Haqqani network is one of the most lethal terrorist organisations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

“Media outlets are circulating reports that peace talks will take place very soon… either in China or Pakistan”, the Taliban said in a separate statement posted on their website early Thursday. He recently sent a delegation to inaugural meetings with Afghan officials hosted by Pakistan, hailed as a breakthrough.

The Afghan government said it regretted the postponement of the second formal face-to-face meeting with the Taliban.

The U.S. urged the Taliban to continue to negotiate with the Afghan government, headed by President Ashraf Ghani, who has staked his political future on convincing militants to lay down their arms.

The statement was signed in the name of Mullah Omar’s brother, Mullah Abdul Manan, and his son, Mohammad Yaqub. “He listens carefully without interrupting your speech but later he makes his decision”.

The new leader of the Taliban is seen as close to Pakistan, which is believed to have sheltered and supported the insurgents through the war, now in its 14th year. “The successful holding of first round of peace-talks was a significant step forward towards a peaceful and stable Afghanistan”. Haqqani has a U.S. bounty of $10 million on his head as a leader of the brutal and extremist Haqqani network, which is allied with al-Qaida.

Taliban attacks against Afghan officials and forces have intensified with their annual warm-weather offensive.

This week another district, this time in the south, fell to insurgents, who have exploited the absence of most North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops after they withdrew at the end of previous year. The Afghanistan government, in a statement, called “all armed opposition groups to seize the opportunity and join the peace process”, according to BBC.

Residents of the area, speaking to Reuters by telephone, said bodies of security personnel and Taliban fighters were lying in the streets after the battle.