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Shawal airstrikes kill 17 militants

“He died there and was laid to rest there”.

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The Taliban officially confirmed Omar’s death in July, admitting that the group had covered up the leader’s death for over two years.

As the Afghan Taliban deals with a leadership crisis, the eldest son of deceased leader Mullah Mohammed Omar said Sunday night in an audio tape that his father died of natural causes, refuting speculation that the reclusive chief was killed by his enemies. “He was not martyred either by elders inside the Emirate nor by enemies outside the Emirate”, said Yakoub, thought to be in his late twenties, in his first public statement. “According to the primary information we had from the doctors, he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C”. On Monday they freed hundreds of prison inmates after detonating a vehicle bomb that killed four policemen in eastern Ghazni city.

Separately, the National Directorate for Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence agency, said it had arrested the Taliban’s shadow governor for the Nazian district of Nangarhar.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said gunmen and three suicide bombers attacked the prison at 2 a.m. (2200 GMT Sunday).

The Taliban are fighting to overthrow the foreign-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, expel foreign forces and impose their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

The Pakistani government says that IS, a group founded in Syria and Iraq in 2013, does not have a credible presence in the country.

“He had not appointed any one as his successor”, he said.

The Afghan insurgents worry Pakistan needs to control their motion for its personal ends, worries Yaqoob referred to.

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“If unity can return with my demise, I’m prepared to hold out suicide”, he stated. “We are ready for whatever order the council gives us. We’re able to work in any capability, whether or not on a excessive degree or a decrease degree”.

US drone kills 15 Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan