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“This confirmation of his death will spark a messy, drawn-out, and likely violent leadership crisis”, Kugelman told AFP.

That’s when Yaqoob, and his principal backer, Zakir, a senior Taliban military commander, sacked by Akhtar Mansoor in April 2014, began whispering about the likelihood of Omar’s possible death.

August 8 One member of Afghanistan’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation force and two insurgents were killed in an overnight battle at a base used by special forces in Kabul, a U.S. official said on Saturday.

The brother of Mullah Mohammad Omar on Sunday joined a growing chorus of opposition to the opaque selection of the late Taliban leader’s successor, indicating widening rifts within the militant group as it weighs whether to revive peace talks or intensify its 14-year...

Earlier, reports had said that following Omar’s death, Mansour was elected as the group’s leader after the Taliban Shura Council met at an undisclosed location in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan to decide on Omar’s replacement.

Said to be in his mid-80s, Haqqani fought against the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as a commander of the Hizb-e-Islami Yunus Khalis group but is more noted for the role his Haqqani network faction of the Taliban played in attacking U.S.-led foreign forces after they...

The Taliban on Friday formally announced their new leader, saying he had been running the insurgent group’s operations for years in the absence of former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The Taliban have also now officially confirmed the NEWS on Thursday that Mullah Omar died of an illness some time ago and that they have elected Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansoor as his successor.

Police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said the pre-dawn blast was near a Defence Ministry compound, but that all of the victims were civilians, including women and children. The Defense Ministry said the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical problem, without elaborating.

In an apparent damage-control measure, the Taliban leadership shura was hurriedly convened to nominate the Taliban’s once-upon-a-time civil aviation minister and Omar’s deputy, Akhar Muhammad Mansoor, as the new ameer – also a tacit acknowledgement that the...

An Afghan with links to top Taliban leaders had approached Afghanistan’s intelligence service in the winter of 2014 with the “startling tip” that Mullah Omar had died in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.

It is widely believed that Mullah Omar fled over the border to Pakistan, where he lived under Pakistani protection until his death.

A prime Taliban official introduced his resignation on Tuesday amid a rising management wrestle within the Afghan rebel motion after information of the dying of chief Mullah Mohammad Omar final week.

“We should remove our differences”.

The Afghan Taliban has publicly named its new leader: Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, according to two commanders of the Islamic militant organization. Mansoor has-been an “active director” of the jihad, or holy war, for some years, it added.