Mansour, whose authority is disputed by rival factions, was wounded when fighting broke out over strategic issues in the house of senior leader called Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi, two senior Taliban members said.
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“We are trying to establish whether Mansour is dead or alive”, Sultan Faizi, spokesman for the Afghan first vice president, told AFP news agency.
“We do not have any reports about the incident and the Afghan Taliban spokesman has also denied the reports”, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told media during the weekly briefing. “Mullah Mansoor is safe and nothing happened to him”, he said.
Afghanistan’s Taliban has rejected widespread reports its leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, was attacked and wounded in a firefight earlier this week.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said a military solution to the Afghan problem was not possible, a day after he held an ice-breaking meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Paris, where both were present for the UN Climate Change Conference.
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The meeting was held at the home of veteran Taliban commander Abdullah Sarhadi, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, the newswire reported.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujaheed, however, has dismissed Fayzi’s assertions as baseless.
The Taliban typically denies reports that could hurt its standing.
There were varying accounts of just what might have occurred in the incident, with some sources saying it took place near the boundary with Pakistan’s Balochistan province in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan had no immediate comment about the allegations.
Mansour was said to in a private hospital for treatment after being hit four times by bullets from an AK-47 assault rifle.
Since August Mullah Mansour has overseen a series of battlefield victories, including briefly capturing the northern Afghan city of Kunduz – a huge setback for Western-backed Afghan forces.
Last month, the breakaway faction of the Taliban elected its own leader, Mullah Mohammed Rasool Akhund, sparking speculation over the unity of the group.
But the dialogue process stalled soon after Omar’s death was announced.
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The splinter groups within Taliban have refused to pledge allegiance to Mansour, who was elected in late July after the announcement of the 2013 death of Mullah Omar.
