Two Afghan government officials said Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was shot Tuesday near Quetta, in western Pakistan.
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Sultan Faizy, the spokesman for first Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, also on his Twitter account confirmed Mansour’s death on Thursday.
A day after reports began surfacing that the Taliban’s supreme leader may have been wounded or killed in a dispute, a scramble by the insurgents to deny the reports again illuminated the group’s fraying unity and recent history of lying about their leaders’ health.
Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in a statement, has rejected the report as baseless, saying inellgience agencies, by launching such baseless propaganda, were attempting to deceive the public opinions.
A Taliban spokesman called the reports “absolutely baseless” but the group typically does not speak publicly on the status of its prominent members.
After some internal division over the new leader, Omar’s trusted deputy Mansoor emerged as the new chief, rekindling hopes for fresh talks. That angered some other Taliban commanders, resulting in a power struggle within the group.
The mystery surrounding the fate of Mansour further deepened after the Taliban released an audio clip Thursday purportedly from the militant at whose house the firefight is said to have occurred.
– Mansour took control of the Afghan Taliban in August, after the announcement of the death of the group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. The group kept longtime chief Mullah Omar’s death secret for two years.
Afghan and USA officials say a joint military operation has freed at least 40 Afghan security forces from a Taliban prison in the southern Helmand province.
But the dialogue process stalled soon after Omar’s death was announced.
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Fayazi also confirmed that Mullah Abdollah Sarhadi, one of the Taliban’s former commanders, has been killed in the gunfight. The meeting on the sidelines of a regional conference will cover a possible resumption of talks with the rebels, and comes the week after he held talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Paris.
