New leader of Afghan Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mansour calls for unity

Finding a unifying leader like Mullah Omar will be nearly impossible for the Taliban, so a split is likely, it said.

Mansoor asked his followers to carry on with their holy war until an Islamist state is established in Afghanistan.

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Today, that hopeful scenario has been blown sky-high with the seismic revelation that Omar has been dead for the past two years.

Mansoor, Omar’s deputy, was elected successor. “We have fought for 25 years and we will not lose our achievements”. “Our decisions all must be based on Sharia law”, he said. The new leader of the Afghan Taliban v… The new leader of the Afghan Taliban vowed to cont…

However, even assuming the possibility that a Pakistani spoiler – or any spoiler – presented this information to the Afghan government, Kabul would presumably have sat on it and not rushed to reveal it at such a delicate moment in the peace process.

The Taliban has accused the government of using the peace talks as a propaganda tool and has said the U.S.is involved. Tutu, 83, won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to white-minority rule in South Africa. “They have been asserting their own leadership and showing their desire to do things on their own, indicating that they are operating reasonably autonomously”.

Obama wanted to talk to the moderate Taliban. He called Mansour’s selection “a very important day” for the Taliban that showed its ability to defy and outmaneuver a powerful patron.

“Niazi added that Omar’s family, particularly his brother and son, was “not happy” with the appointment”. Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi said those who elected Mullah Mansoor had not followed the rules.

If Mansoor fails to appease his fighters and field commanders on the ground, the ultimate beneficiary could be the Islamic State group.

Further splintering within the Taliban could see more local commanders defect to other extremist groups, such as the Islamic State group, which has taken control of large parts of Iraq and Syria and is believed to have recruited some Taliban as it tries to establish a presence in Afghanistan.

As the leadership crisis deepened, the Taliban released a statement from one of its most notorious commanders pledging loyalty to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, who was chosen to lead after the death of the Taliban’s reclusive, one-eyed founder was announced last week. “He was also the Taliban “Governor” of Kandahar as of May 2007″, the United Nations document said.

Initially, the Taliban themselves brushed off the reports of Omar’s death.

“He was repatriated to Afghanistan in September 2006 following detention in Pakistan”.

In a separate statement Saturday, the Taliban rebutted media reports that the leader of the Haqqani network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, had died in eastern Afghanistan a year ago.

The statement on Sunday said Haqqani backed Mansoor as the Taliban’s leader.

He said the Taliban leadership will make all efforts to maintain internal unity at all cost. Haqqani has been inactive for many years, and there has been speculation that he may be dead. It could not be independently verified.

Mansour s two newly named deputies are Sirajuddin – who has a $10 million US bounty on his head – and Haibatullah Akhundzada, former head of the Taliban courts.