Afghan Taliban meet to resolve leadership dispute

He stopped trying to raise money or recruit new adherents.

Instead, Mullah Akhtar Mansour was declared the Taliban’s new leader.

Agha, who was a close confidant of Mullah Omar, said he would no longer represent the Taliban political office but would remain a member of the Taliban movement. Mullah Zaeef, the Taliban’s trusted ambassador to Pakistan, recounts how Mullah Omar rebuffed Islamabad when it conveyed Washington’s message to hand over Osama bin Laden.

The argument about whether Taliban leader Mullah Omar died two years ago or last week is irrelevant. That death became public only last month.

Agha added that consensus should have been sought from insurgent strongholds inside Afghanistan over the new leader’s appointment.

However, some Taliban members said they had not been consulted on the decision.

The IMU, which is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations and is banned in Central Asian countries and Russian Federation.

“From their perspective, it was the right thing to do”, said a ranking officer of the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan’s top spy agency.

Some commentators have gone so far as to suggest that the Taliban fears losing supporters to the Islamic State as a result of Omar’s death.

The private television channel Tolo has also reported Mullah Yaqub’s death, quoted lawmaker Qadir. He fled into Pakistan on a motorcycle and was never seen again.

Until recently, Balkh and most of northern Afghanistan had been largely peaceful.

Syed Mohammad Tayab Agha’s resignation has fueled speculation that the Afghan militant organization faces a succession crisis following the disclosure of Omar’s 2013 death. The decision to hide it has been attributed to Mullah Mansour, who was Omar’s longtime deputy and was chosen by the Taliban’s supreme council.

In the latest development, the head of the Taliban’s political office, Tayyab Agha, stepped down on Monday and said he would not support any side in the ongoing dispute.

“They will not keep the level of unity they had under Mullah Sahib”.

Pashtuns make up about a quarter of Karachi’s estimated population of 20 million.

“He did not start the business from scratch”, explained a ranking ISI counterterrorism operative.

He was chosen following “a prolonged discussion” by the Taliban’s leadership council, it said.

The sources said Omar’s presence at Aga Khan Hospital would not have been a surprise.

The Taliban has taken control of pockets of territory across the country since North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdrew most of its forces at the end of 2014, leaving the Afghan army and police to quell the violence.

Cracks have appeared in the Taliban ranks since the death of their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar which was confirmed by Taliban outfit on Thursday.