The source told ABC News Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour was attending a traditional “jirga”, or council meeting, in Pakistan created to work out the differences between various Taliban factions when an argument erupted into gunfire.
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According to Fayzi, a quarrel broke out between the two men, which, the spokesman claimed, quickly escalated into an armed confrontation.
The Taliban source said Mansoor was hit four times by bullets from an AK-47 and was being treated in a hospital.
But they all agreed the meeting was at the home of Abdullah Sarhadi, a commander in Mansour’s group and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. They accused Afghanistan’s government of fabricating the incident, perhaps to undermine a planned meeting between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif next week in Islamabad.
Sarhadi may have been trying to mediate a dispute between Mansour and other Taliban leaders when the two sides began shooting at each other, Faizi said.
Afghan officials on Wednesday confirmed reports of the death of his deputy, Mullah Dadullah, a prominent commander and a major rival to Mansour.
Nevertheless, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the incident took place and said Mansour was in Afghanistan. However, he has said talks are complicated by divisions within the Taliban following the announcement of Mullah’s Omar’s death.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said that Mansour had been “very seriously injured” in what he described as a “heavy exchange of fire” at a gathering of militant commanders near the Pakistani city of Quetta.
The Taliban typically denies reports that could hurt its standing.
Since August Mullah Mansour has overseen a series of battlefield victories, including briefly capturing the northern Afghan city of Kunduz – a huge setback for Western-backed Afghan forces.
The gunfire, which sources told the BBC seemed to be spontaneous and not an organized attack, comes two years after the death of Taliban founder Mullah Omar.
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Last month, the fighting in Zabul led a dissident commander in Farah province named Mullah Rasool to declare himself head of the group, in an unprecedented challenge to the central leadership. For years, there were off-and-on rumors that Omar was dead and no longer leading the Taliban.
