Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansou in this undated handout photograph by the Taliban. He said the incident took place in the home of Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi, a former Taliban official, and that six Taliban figures, including Sarhadi, were killed.
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“I think it s a faked audio”.
In his audio message, Mansoor also said that the Taliban “won’t agree to have peace talks if our demands are not met”. “This is enemy propaganda”, a person claiming to be Mullah Mansour says in the message.
“This is completely unfounded and let me tell you, and believe me, that I have not visited the Kuchlak area of Quetta for years”, Mansour said in the voice message.
A spokesman for Afghanistan’s first vice president Abdul Rasheed Dostum had last week claimed Mansoor was wounded in a shootout, while multiple intelligence and militant sources claimed he was dead.
“Well, we are trying to locate him through our people to get his voice and release to the media to kill these rumours spread by the Afghan puppet government”, Mujahid said.
The voice in the clip could not be independently verified while some militant commanders said it appeared to be that of Mansour.
I’ve never had a fight with anyone, no meeting was held and I have not been to Kuchlak (in Pakistan) in years.
Omar was killed in 2013 and was in charge of the Taliban for two decades.
But doubts continued to linger among the group’s senior ranks, who are distrustful of their leadership following a two-year cover-up of the death of the Taliban’s founder and first leader Mullah Omar.
“If Mansour has died, the Taliban will do everything in its power to keep that a secret for as long as possible”, Kabul-based military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil told AFP.
New Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor has denied being wounded in a dispute with another commander, calling it a “baseless claim” that is part of the “agenda of the enemy”.
“Why did they wait nearly five days to do that? They should stay impartial”, the man claiming to be Mansour said.
But splits immediately emerged in the group, with some top leaders refusing to pledge allegiance to Mansour, saying the process to select him was rushed and even biased.
There has been no statement so far from Mansour, who had effectively been in charge of the movement at least since Omar’s death.
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The raid marks a rare success for Afghan forces struggling to beat back the stubborn insurgency rapidly expanding north from its southern hotbeds.
