Mullah Omar led the Taliban for the nearly 20 years and has been the binding factor for the movement.
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The appointment of Mansour, seen as a pragmatist and a proponent of peace talks, comes a day after the Taliban confirmed the death of their near-mythical leader Mullah Omar, who led the fractious group for some 20 years.
In comments to the Associated Press, Taliban officials said the group’s supreme council had met in Pakistan and picked Akhtar Mohammed Mansour, Omar’s longtime senior aide, to replace him.
Afghans with knowledge of Mansoor’s years with the Taliban describe him as a low-level administrator who mostly dealt with organizational matters and was not among the top 10 Taliban leaders at the time.
The Afghan Taliban have confirmed that Jalaluddin Haqqani – the founder of Haqqani Network and father of Afghan Taliban’s naib amir (second in command) Sirajuddin – had died a natural death a year ago, sources said on Friday. It cited the uncertainty resulting from the announcement of Mullah Omar’s death.
The Taliban has taken control of pockets of territory across the country since North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdrew most of its forces at the end of 2014, leaving the Afghan army and police to quell the violence.
Following Baradar’s capture – reportedly in a joint U.S.-Pakistani intelligence operation in the Pakistani port city of Karachi – Mansoor was named the group’s official No. 2.
Taliban has named a new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who backs peace talks.
Zakir is pushing for Mullah Omar’s son Yaqoob to take over the movement, and a sizeable faction also supports Yaqoob.
It was not immediately known when the talks would be held again. The same Mansour who had “played an active role for the start of the talks” in Murree, Pakistani journalist and Taliban expert Rahimullah Yousufzai noted. “Yet even by Mullah Omar’s standards, his elusiveness in his final years was remarkable”.
Yacoob said that all Taliban commanders should have been included in the vote for Mullah Omar’s replacement.
Here’s a look at Mullah Mansoor and what may lie ahead for the Taliban and Afghanistan.
Mansour, a long-time trusted deputy of Omar, takes charge as the movement faces growing internal divisions and is threatened by the rise of the Islamic State group, the Middle East jihadist outfit that is making inroads in Afghanistan.
“The government of Afghanistan believes that grounds for the Afghan peace talks are more paved now than before, and thus calls on all armed opposition groups to seize the opportunity and join the peace process”. “So this is a completely new situation”, said Bette Dam, author of an upcoming biography of the Taliban leader.
Michael Kugelman, Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson worldwide Center for Scholars, said the loss of their long-time leader was a huge blow for the Taliban.
Security establishment members were of the assessment that peace talks would resume soon after the new TTA leadership makes changes at certain positions in the organisation to sideline the troublemakers and strengthen their grip.
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Barnett Rubin, a former U.S. State Department official and leading specialist on Afghanistan, wrote in The New Yorker on July 29 that Mullah Omar’s death could “cause the Taliban to splinter”.
