Mullah Mansoor calls for unity in ranks in first audio message

The audio message said fighters should unite as “division in our ranks will only please our enemies”. “This is a big responsibility on us”.

On the surface, the dialogue facilitated by Pakistan and China and endorsed by the US has suffered a reversal, with the Afghan Taliban postponing the second round of talks because of Mullah Omar’s death.

Afghan forces also retook control Friday of Naw Zad district in Helmand province after three days of fierce fighting with the Taliban, the officials said.

“While the exact circumstances of his death remain uncertain, it is clear that his demise, after decades of war and thousands of lives lost, represents a chance for yet more progress on the path to a stable, secure Afghanistan”, the administration said in a statement.

According to the United Nations Security Council sanctions list, Mansour previously was the Taliban’s minister of civil aviation and transportation and is considered “a prominent member of the Taliban leadership”.

Mullah Omar was the one-eyed, secretive head of the Taliban whose group hosted Osama Bin Laden’s al Qaida in the years leading up to the September 11 2001 attacks. He has to try to persuade wavering commanders to pursue peace talks with the Afghan government at the same time a new extremist group is stepping up its recruiting in the region – Islamic State.

In a new audio recording, Masoor made a plea for unity, saying he is ready to meet all the dissidents and to deal with their grievances.

Zabiullah Mujahid Taliban spokesman on Saturday sent the audio to many journalists.

A statement by the group said Mullah Omar was eliminated following the opening of the group’s liaison office in Qatar which sparked serious argunment between him and Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.

“The government… based on credible information, confirms that Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban died in April 2013 in Pakistan”, the Afghan presidential palace had said in a statement. We should accept each other. Instead, there are now romanticized commentaries how US may actually miss Mullah Omar because he was the unifying factor in the Taliban. U.S. officials tell the Post that to the best of their knowledge, there was never any Central Intelligence Agency plan to capture of kill the Taliban leader.

It is the first time we have seen such differences among the group’s leadership.

Though the Haqqani network was allied with Taliban and followed Omar, it carried out its operations independently.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has recently taken a political gamble by seeking the cooperation of Afghanistan’s longtime enemy, Pakistan, to advance a long-stalled peace process with the Taliban. Jalaluddin’s son Sirajuddin was elected as the Taliban’s deputy to Mansoor – a move possibly aimed at ensuring a steady cash flow from the Haqqani’s wealthy backers and appeasing hardliners.