Afghanistan: Kabul ‘won’t hold peace talks with Taliban alone’

The statement on Monday from President Ashraf Ghani’s office also says it will not accept any “parallel political structure” opposed to the Afghan government. Mullah Omar’s death will have serious ramifications not just for the future of Afghanistan, but also for regional stability and the global jihad. They are keen to return to Afghanistan after reaching a political compromise with Kabul. Uzbekistan shares 85 miles of border with Afghanistan, with the one major crossing point being the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge across the Amu Darya, built by the Soviet Army in 1982 at the Uzbek town of Termez.

Other possible explanations – though none very convincing – come to mind: The Afghan government had good reason to believe the talks would somehow take a turn for the worse and decided to provide an out for the negotiating parties.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has accused the Taliban of deceit and collusion, and demanded that the Afghan militant movement tell the truth about the circumstances of its late leader’s death. They had to be crushed while global aid was poured in to transform his ruined country.

The presence of foreign extremists is complicating the Afghan government’s attempts to pursue peace talks with the Taliban. Yet either he, or someone on his behalf, directed Taliban fighters operating from safe havens in Pakistan, bloodying an worldwide coalition of more than 100,000 soldiers enough to cause it to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans. “Mullah Yaqub, the son of Mullah Omar, was killed a couple of days ago”, citing lawmaker Zahir Qadir, the Daily Outlook reported in its Tuesday’s edition.

There is no question that Pakistan’s Afghan strategy is evolving.

A spokesman for the terror group in Khorasan province claimed that pledges of allegiance to Islamic State is taking place across the country.

On Sunday, Mullah Omar’s brother, Mullah Abdul Manan, issued a statement saying that Mansour’s appointment had been carried out in haste and was not acceptable to many Taliban factions.

Mansour along with the two deputies newly named – Haibatullah, an influential religious leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Akhundzada are viewed as people close to the military establishment of Pakistan which has supported and nurtured the Taliban historically.

In a statement, Syed Tayyab Agha said he would step down, and criticised the way in which Mullah Omar’s successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, had been chosen.

The new Taliban leadership are fighting to keep the group together amid fears of a rupture in the wake of founder Mullah Muhammed Omar’s death.

“The Taliban could not be immediately reached on the government’s comments about Omar, who has been declared dead many times before”, notes AP. Mullah Mansour is widely seen as having pushed the Taliban into the negotiations at Pakistan s bidding.

The confirmation of Omar’s death ends years of speculation about the fate of the leader, who was not seen in public since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban from power.

Will the IS use the current political paralysis in the Taliban to further their recruitment? This is why IS will be the natural beneficiary of Mullah Umar’s death. From the 1980s on, when the preeminent militant figures were headquartered in Afghanistan and Pakistan and receiving active sponsorship or tacit acquiescence from the Pakistani security services, Beijing enjoyed a number of benefits.