White House says circumstances of Taliban leader’s death remain uncertain

The adviser said that that the Taliban have confirmed the death of Mulla Mohammad Omer – founder and supreme leader of the group – and they have elected a new leader – Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.

The group released a statement on Friday saying Mullah Akhtar Mansoor has been elected by the Taliban’s central council, known as a Shura, held after news of the death of Mullah Omar emerged Wednesday.

Offering prayers, Saeed, who has a United States dollars 10 million US government bounty against him, prayed to God to “forgive the sins of the great leader of (Muslim) Ummah and grant him a high place in heaven”. It is widely believed that Mansoor is close to Pakistan and that his actions have reflected the bidding of Islamabad.

Mansoor joined the Taliban’s top leadership shortly after the 2010 capture of Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the four founding members of the group.

In the fall of 2014 and winter of 2015, Afghan officials said, they intercepted two letters written by disaffected Taliban commanders who both referred to the possible death of Mullah Omar.

The latest report comes a day after the Taliban acknowledged that its leader, Mullah Omar, was dead.

The confirmation of Omar’s death ends years of fevered speculation about the fate of the leader, who has not been seen in public since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban from power. The network has been blamed for numerous deadliest attacks against coalition forces and the Afghan government during the war.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry said Kabul “as always, is committed to the peace negotiations with the Afghan Taliban movement and hopes that the aforementioned meeting will be held in the near future”.

“(Our) political office… are not aware of any such process”. He recently sent a delegation to inaugural meetings with Afghan officials hosted by Pakistan, hailed as a breakthrough.

Mullah Mansoor, thought to be aged between 50 and 52, was previously the aviation and transport minister during the Taliban regime, which controlled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.

Afghan officials confirmed that the Taliban are divided on peace talks.

Michael Kugelman, Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson worldwide Centre for Scholars, said the loss of their long-time leader was a huge blow for the Taliban.

“It will need to focus on its survival, not talks”.

Under the prevailing circumstances, even if the peace deal between the government and Taliban is carried out successfully, it would most probably fail to achieve the desired results.

According to Pakistani and Afghan news reports, Mullah Omar died of tuberculosis in a Karachi hospital in 2013.

“Mansoor has a more practical vision for the Taliban movement compared to that of his predecessor”, Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban official, told DW.

As well as fighting on the ground and coming under pressure from all sides to negotiate, the Taliban aussi face the challenge of halting the expansion of the group Islamic State in Afghanistan, qui has-been recruiting disaffected fighters. The group is allied with al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban and cooperates with other terrorist organizations in the region.