An Afghan newspaper headlines pictures of the former leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who was killed in a USA drone strike last week, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
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Pakistan had once again condemned the US drone strike, in the similar way as earlier, describing it as a violation of its sovereignty.Various countries including Afghanistan, USA and Pakistan had admitted the death of Taliban’s chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour after DNA test results.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said in a statement that Mullah Mansoor’s DNA sample has matched that of a “close relative”. To provide a morale boost for their fighters and field commanders, the strategy is likely to be the same aggressive tactics adopted by Mansour, who seized Kunduz in September 2015 and went all-out against the rebel faction of Mullah Rasool as well as against the Afghanistan-Pakistan chapter of the Islamic State (IS).
“According to the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mansour was traveling under a fake identity”, said Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs.
The statement by the State Department statement also indicates that the United States wants Pakistan also to act against the Afghan Taliban leaders who are allegedly hiding inside its territory, in return for USA help in targeting TTP leaders in Afghanistan.
The mission, which the United States officials said was authorised by President Barack Obama, included multiple drones.
Mansour was traveling by vehicle near the town of Ahmad Wal on May 21 when he was killed, a major blow to the Islamist group that has been waging a guerilla war in Afghanistan since being toppled from power in 2001.
The air strike on Saturday, May 21, that allegedly killed Mansour was perhaps the most high-profile USA incursion into Pakistan since the 2011 raid to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and sparked a protest by Islamabad that its sovereignty had been violated.
Pakistan has a huge refugee problem and none of the previous government took initiative to counter this problem, said Nisar. But he deemed both the broader Taliban organisation as well as its Pakistan-based offshoot, the Haqqani network, “terrorists” and vowed expanded attacks by the Afghan military.
The three of them, who were American citizens, were killed in October 2011 in a USA drone strike. The Interior Ministry said yesterday that the tests proved that Mansour was killed in the drone attack.
The killing of the Taliban leader will again stoke the fire of the stormy relationship that has existed between the US and Pakistan.
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But while Pakistan refused to confirm Mansour’s death for days after the drone strike, the Taliban moved ahead and picked a new chief.
