News reported that Afghan officials confirmed the story, while Taliban sources claimed the alleged incident never happened and no such meeting was ever held.
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“There is no truth to the rumours that I was injured or killed in Kuchlak (near Quetta in Pakistan)”, the man claiming to be Mansour said in the file, emailed to media by a Taliban spokesman.
Afghan officials claimed that Mansour was injure d on Wednesday during a meeting of the Afghan Taliban in Kuchlak area, some 25 km from Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.
‘I personally believe Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada and the Emirate will announce his death at an appropriate time later, ‘ he said, employing the term the Taliban use to describe their movement.
The shootout also threatens to derail a renewed regional push to jump-start peace talks with the Taliban.
“If Mansour has died, the Taliban will do everything in its power to keep that a secret for as long as possible”, Kabul-based military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil told AFP.
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. “We will release it soon, which will expose the ulterior motives of the enemy”, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a brief message in Pashto and Dari languages sent to media. But there has so far been no direct statement from him.
But splits immediately emerged in the group, with some top leaders refusing to pledge allegiance to Mansour, saying the process to select him was rushed and even biased.
But Mansour’s group has seen a resurgence in recent months, opening new battlefronts across the country with Afghan forces struggling to beat back the expanding insurgency.
The reports were the latest among many instances of mass graves being uncovered in territory wrested from IS militants in Iraq and Syria thousands of people have been killed in summary and extrajudicial killings by the Sunni militants and the graves have been a dark testimony to the group’s brutality.
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It would be the first formal division in the once unified Taliban group which has pressed attacks on Afghan forces since major pullbacks by a US-led coalition which for years has backed the Kabul government.
