Taliban Chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour Dies: Afghan Officials

Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansoor has died of injuries, Afghanistan officials confirmed on Friday. It remains unclear whether Mansour survived the gunfight, which exposes dissension within Taliban top ranks and threatens to derail a renewed regional push to jump-start peace talks. While Afghanistan’s government is attempting to establish that Mansour is dead after reports emerged on Wednesday that he was severely injured in a shooting at a meeting of the group’s senior commanders, a Taliban spokesman has denied that Mansour was injured at all, saying the reports are “absolutely baseless”.

Sultan Faizy, spokesman for Afghanistan first Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum, tweeted: “Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour died of injuries”.

It was unclear what the argument was about.

There was no independent verification of the file, which raised the question of why the Taliban have not yet released an audio or video clip from Mansour himself to bolster their claim.

Mullah Mansour concealed the information about Mullah Omar’s death for more than two years in order to keep the outfit united.

Mansour was declared Taliban leader on July 31 after the insurgents confirmed the death of Omar, who led the Taliban movement for some two decades. After assuming Taliban leadership Mansoor divided the hardliner group into two factions, TASS reports.

They briefly captured the strategic northern city of Kunduz in September in their most spectacular victory in 14 years and opened new battlefronts across the country. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry formally announced this current week in that Ghani & Sharif are to satisfy, together with representatives of america & China, to hunt a consensus on whether or not peace talks between the Taliban & Ghani’s authorities can be restarted.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani this week voiced a willingness to revive the negotiations following a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Paris.

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said on Twitter Mansour was wounded in a firefight near Quetta, in western Pakistan, but there has been no direct evidence.

Several people were also reportedly killed or injured in the altercation.