Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mansour was killed in a drone attack near Quetta on Saturday, in what was the US” first-ever drone strike in Balochistan, which has always been a “red line’ for Pakistan.
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While the Taliban have yet to confirm the death of their leader Saturday in a remote area in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, senior members of the insurgency’s leadership council met to begin choosing Mansour’s successor.
In a statement sent to the media, the Taliban said their new leader is Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, one of Mansour’s two deputies.
“Akhundzada is a religious scholar who served as the Taliban’s chief justice before his appointment as a deputy to Mansour”.
Haqqani Network’s Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Yaqub, the son of late Taliban supremo Mullah Omar, have been nominated as deputy chiefs.
Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a USA drone strike carried out in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on May 21; however, Pakistani government has not yet confirmed his killing.
Past year the Taliban were plunged into turmoil when Mansour replaced the group’s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.
US State Department Spokesperson Mark Toner has called on Pakistan to pursue actively terrorist organizations that are allegedly using its soil and territory to find refuge, asserting that they will continue to work with Islamabad and give provide necessary tools to confront the threat of terrorism.
What appears to have changed was Mullah Mansour’s growing closeness to al-Qaeda which is now re-establishing itself in Afghanistan, joining Daesh and the Taliban in a resurgent militancy.
Akhunzada, believed to be around 60 years of age and a member of the powerful Noorzai tribe, was a close aide to Omar and is from Kandahar, in the south of Afghanistan and the heartland of the Taliban.
Mansour, the leader who was killed last week, refused to negotiate with the Afghan government. Pakistan’s ISI secret service has always been suspected of supporting the Taliban leadership in cities over the border from Afghanistan, notably Quetta and Peshawar.
Afghan Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was the target of the drone near Dalbandin, Baluchistan, Pakistan.
At a televised news conference in Islamabad, Khan said Pakistan is still unable to officially confirm Mansour’s death, although Washington, Kabul and some senior Taliban commanders have confirmed it. Pakistan has been claiming that it did not know the whereabouts of Mansour, notorious for his intransigence and for not joining the peace efforts in Afghanistan. “Pakistan’s Balochistan province, ‘ the statement said, in the insurgents” first confirmation of his death.
Khan also said Pakistan was investigating how Mansoor’s passport survived the drone strike on the auto.
The Taliban said Wednesday’s suicide attack in Paghman district near Kabul, which the United Nations condemned as “cowardly”, was in revenge for the execution of six Taliban-linked inmates.
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Hebatullah was appointed as the leader of the Taliban group through a unanimous vote.
