While the United States announced the targeting of the vehicle carrying Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in a town in Pakistan, it had not officially confirmed it, but governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan did.
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“Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and coalition partners”, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in the statement.
He called on the Taliban’s remaining leadership to engage in peace talks as the “only real path” to ending the attritional conflict.
“This does not represent a shift in our approach”, Obama said, emphasizing that the USA mission is to “help Afghanistan secure its own country”.
Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Monday the attack against Mansour inside Pakistan on Saturday was a defensive strike aimed at disrupting the Taliban plotting.
The drone strike occurred Sunday in Baluchistan, a Pakistani province.
The United States still has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, mainly in advisory and support roles with Afghan government forces.
At a news conference with President Tran Dai Quang of Vietnam, Obama said that targeting Mullah Mansour did not represent a shift in strategy for the United States mission in Afghanistan.
However, he stressed that the operation against Mansour did not represent a shift in USA strategy in Afghanistan or a return to active engagement in fighting, following the end of the global coalition’s main combat mission in 2014.
The Foreign Ministry of Pakistan has summoned the US Ambassador over the airstrike that targeted the Taliban Chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
The drone attack against Mansour just inside Pakistan on Saturday was carried out under USA rules of engagement that allow US forces to conduct defensive strikes against people engaged in activity threatening US and coalition personnel, said Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
And that the group had decided “a politically negotiated settlement was the only viable option for lasting peace in Afghanistan”.
“We have had longstanding conversations with Pakistan and Afghanistan about this objective with respect to Mullah Mansour, and both countries’ leaders were notified of the air strike”.
Saturday’s drone strike, the first known American assault on a top Afghan Taliban leader on Pakistani soil, sent a shockwave through the rebel group, which had seen a new resurgence under Mansour.
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Mansoor assumed the Taliban leadership in August, after the announcement of the death of movement founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.
