Taliban sections say Mullah Mansour wounded in internal shootout

Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was seriously injured in a firefight following a heated argument at a meeting of militant commanders, officials said on Wednesday, exposing deepening divisions within the fractious militant movement.

“Mansoor was seriously injured”.

A Taliban spokesman denied that Mansour was injured at all, saying the reports are “absolutely baseless”, but the group typically does not speak publicly on the status of its prominent members.

She said at the General Assembly, she had presented Pakistan’s viewpoint emphasizing the need for revival of peace talks that began in Murree, where Pakistan hosted first round of the talks. “However, we have noted the Taliban spokesperson has denied that any such incident took place”, foreign ministry spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told reporters in Islamabad.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said this week which he was ready to talk to Taliban members but he warned that since the departure of Mullah Omar there was “no such thing as the Taliban There are groups of Taliban…”

The two leaders agreed to work together to bring Taliban insurgents to the negotiating table after meeting yesterday on the sidelines of a climate change conference in Paris, said officials.

Mullah Dadullah was a respected senior Taliban commander when he split from Mullah Mansour over the revelation this summer that the group’s supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, had been dead for at least two years.

“The enemy falsely claimed that the incident took place at house of a Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi”. They spread these rumours about a clash between Taliban leaders.

Mansoor assumed leadership in the summer following the announcement that the group’s founder, Mullah Omar, had died in 2013.

However, Taliban spokesman Mullah Yousaf Ahmadi had denied the death of Mullah Akhtar, 92 News reported. A former government official in Afghanistan said the American man is alive and in good health, although his precise whereabouts remain unknown both to local officials and those in the United States.

Fledgling peace discussions were disturbed by news of his passing between the Taliban as well as the Afghan authorities.

The Taliban have seen a new resurgence under Mansour, opening new battlefronts despite the rise of the rival Islamic State in Afghanistan.

“I would call it a conspiracy by the jackals acting behind the scene to sabotage relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan”, said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.