Spokesman Eric Schultz said U.S. intelligence continued to look into the matter.
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“No matter who is in charge of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they will have no choice but to have a good relationship with the Pakistani state”.
Omar’s son Mullah Yakoub was favoured to take over by some commanders, sources said, but at 26 was considered too young and inexperienced for such a key role.
Moreover his longstanding ties to Pakistan, viewed by many Taliban as a capricious, unreliable ally motivated exclusively by self-interest, has led some to suspect him of being little more than an ISI puppet.
However, Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a member of Leadership Council of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name the group refers to itself, released a statement today denying claims of disagreements and conflict on the decision.
The Tolonews website runs a story on its front page reporting about news of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in Kabul May 23, 2011. His argument that he kept quiet about Omar’s death in order to avoid demoralisation within the Taliban ranks and file and stop it from falling apart, is not being bought by many.
The White House stopped short of independently confirming the news, but its spokesperson, Eric Shultz, said that the report of the Taliban leader’s death appeared to be credible.
Foreign Ministry on Friday said that while China understands the reasons for postponement of talks, it wants all parties to focus on national unity and lasting peace in Afghanistan and continue to push forward the peace and reconciliation process.
Haqqani has a US government bounty of $10 million on his head as a leader of the extremist Haqqani network, which is allied with al-Qaeda.
Jalaluddin was an ally of Afghan Taliban, whose three out of ten sons were killed in US drone attacks while one was murdered in Islamabad.
Mullah Akhtar Mansoor will now assume the position of supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban, according to reports in the Pakistani media.
The second round of Afghan peace talks, which were due this Friday, were postponed at the request of the Taliban leadership, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Thursday. Sirajuddin Haqqani’s group is thought to be linked to a series of attacks, including an assault on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2011. It was in Kandahar in the 1990s that the Taliban were founded by Mullah Omar.
Hayatullah, another important member of the Shura, has been appointed as the leader of political wing of Afghan Taliban. Afghan authorities said on Wednesday that Omar had been dead since 2013.
Violence has worsened significantly since North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdrew most of its forces from the country at the end of 2014.
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Omar’s death may not affect Taliban operations on the ground, but it is likely to intensify an internal tussle to replace him and Grare said the loss of the rallying point Omar represented could benefit the growing Islamic State movement in the country. In his latest address, Baghdadi made a point of specifically welcoming followers of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam – to which the Taliban belongs – into the caliphate.
