Taliban confirms Omar’s death; Mullah Akhtar becomes new chief

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

Mullah Yacoob, Mullah Omar’s oldest son, said he and three other senior leaders had walked out of a meeting called to elect a new leader, and were now demanding a wider vote.

In recent years, his son Sirajuddin has taken on increasing leadership within the group from his father, who was born in 1942.

Foreign Ministry on Friday said that while China understands the reasons for postponement of talks, it wants all parties to focus on national unity and lasting peace in Afghanistan and continue to push forward the peace and reconciliation process. 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 network is militarily the most capable of the Afghan Taliban factions and operates independently but remains loyal to Mullah Omar. “So this is a completely new situation”, said Bette Dam, author of an upcoming biography of the Taliban leader.

Mansoor will be only the second leader the Taliban have had since Omar, an elusive figure rarely seen in public who founded the group in the 1990s.

There are already rumblings of discontent – some Taliban are unhappy at the thought Mansour may have deceived them for over a year about Omar’s death and others accuse him of riding roughshod over the process to appoint a successor.

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.

There he reportedly developed links with the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, which nurtured the Taliban in the 1990s and even now is regularly accused of fuelling the insurgency.

Despite threats both internal and external, Taliban fighters have been gaining territory in Afghanistan, where they are trying to topple the Western-backed government.

“That means that Mullah Mansour may have spent most of the past two years deceiving his fellow insurgents by claiming to pass on orders and messages from Mullah Omar“, it cited officials as saying.

While there has been no official comment on the Pakistani side, Mansour’s appointment was welcomed by retired Brigadier Mehmood Shah.

Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansoor, had also been given the title of “Commander of the Faithful”, conferring on him the supreme status held by Mullah Omar.

This week another district, this time in the south, fell to insurgents, who have exploited the absence of most North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops after they withdrew at the end of past year. The talks on Friday and their progress in the weeks ahead could help determine whether Afghanistan follows the route of Syria, Yemen and Libya toward state collapse. His argument that he kept quiet about Omar’s death in order to avoid demoralisation within the Taliban ranks and file and stop it from falling apart, is not being bought by many.