The Taliban introduced that Mullah Mansoor was their new chief on Thursday and launched a purported audio assertion from him on Saturday through which he referred to as for unity and warned of enemy propaganda aimed toward dividing the group. However, a spokesman for the group told BBC that Mullah Mansoor had not been appointed “by all Taliban” which, he said, was against Shariah. “Our decisions all must be based on Sharia law”, he said.
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It was widely believed that it was Mansoor who had sent the top three Taliban leaders to sit in face-to-face discussions with the representatives of the Afghan government in Pakistan on July 7.
The brother of Mullah Mohammad Omar on Sunday joined a rising refrain of opposition to the opaque choice of the late Taliban chief’s successor, indicating widening rifts inside the militant group because it weighs whether or not to revive peace talks or intensify its 14-year insurgency in Afghanistan. He said the vote took place among a small clique of Mansoor’s supporters and demanded a re-election that includes all Taliban commanders, including those fighting in Afghanistan. He has to try to persuade wavering commanders to pursue peace talks with the Afghan government at the same time a new extremist group is stepping up its recruiting in the region – Islamic State.
The Taliban deny Mullah Omar ever left Afghanistan, however the secretive nature of his demise raised the likelihood that the senior Taliban management – a Supreme Council with simply seven members – had hid his demise from the broader motion, which has tens of hundreds of fighters. He is believed to support the peace process initiated by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and which Pakistan has taken the lead on sponsoring. The Islamic State group already controls about a third of Iraq and Syria, with active affiliates in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. He had not been seen in public since fleeing over the border into Pakistan after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban from power. The current Taliban leadership crisis could give the Afghan government extra leverage in negotiations. Local security forces increasingly find themselves under attack as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and U.S. troops ended their combat mission in the country at the end of previous year.
Officials said on Saturday that Taliban gunmen had surrounded a police station in southern Uruzgan province and were holding 70 police officers hostage.
“If we don’t get support then all 70 police will be either dead or captured”, he said.
The Afghan Taliban issued a written statement Sunday purportedly quoting Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of the notoriously brutal Haqqani insurgent group, in an effort to quell rumors of his death.
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The statement said Ghani spoke to officials by video link from Germany, where he is recovering from foot surgery. Haqqani’s son Sirajuddin was named Mullah Mansoor’s deputy after his promotion. While it rarely claims responsibility for its attacks, they are usually identifiable by their use of complex tactics, like a large number of assailants including suicide bombers.
