#Afghanistan peace talks on hold amid Taliban turmoil

Following the death of longtime Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, a Taliban spokesman has confirmed that Mullah Akhtar Mohammad has been named as the group’s new leader.

The Taliban said Thursday that Mullah Omar’s family had confirmed his death from an unspecified illness, though no time frame was given. Hunted from the war’s outset, Mullah Omar had not been seen in public since late 2001, when he fled underground without leaving any official photograph and not releasing no videos or audio messages in the years that followed.

In 2010 his name came up in a freakish episode in which an impostor claiming to be Mansour duped US and British intelligence, reportedly receiving tens of thousands of dollars from them in goodwill payments, before disappearing.

He was chosen following “a prolonged discussion” by the Taliban’s leadership council, it said. He is only the Taliban’s second-ever leader, with Omar having been at the helm since founding the Afghanistan-based militant organization in the 1990s.

The first round of face-to-face talks between Taliban representatives and the Afghanistan government was held in Pakistan on July 7. “Yet even by Mullah Omar’s standards, his elusiveness in his final years was remarkable”.

The new leader is having a lot of explanations to give to his commanders and colleagues in the Rahbari shura, according to a senior Taliban figure. The Afghan government announced Wednesday that the reclusive mullah had been dead since 2013.

The handover of the Taliban leadership to the “moderate” Mullah Akhtar Mansour is being seen by some as a win for Pakistan, the insurgents’ historic backers, but could deepen splits within the movement.

The power transition raises hopes that Mansour’s leadership will pave the way for an end to almost 14 years of fighting as the US-backed Afghan government struggles to contain the Taliban’s intensifying summer offensive. “Mansoor had invited only members of his group to pave the way for his election”, one of the sources, a senior member of Taliban in Quetta, told Reuters. In Afghanistan the coming to power of President Ashraf Ghani, who has taken a conciliatory approach to Pakistan, and fears about the growing influence of the Islamic State group, have also improved the grounds for talks.

The IS, however, just like Taliban and Mujahideen before it, can not survive in Afghanistan without outside patrons and sanctuary.

Moreover his longstanding ties to Pakistan, viewed by many Taliban as a capricious, unreliable ally motivated exclusively by self-interest, has led some to suspect him of being little more than an ISI puppet.

But it cast a pall on the country’s fragile peace process aimed at ending the long war, with the Taliban distancing itself from the second round of talks slated for Friday.