VOA News
Ayaz Gul
May 24, 2016
ISLAMABAD—While the Afghan Taliban have still not officially confirmed or denied the death of their chief, Mullah Mansoor, in a U.S. drone attack, insurgent leaders appear to be preparing the ground for a leadership transition.
In a Pashto-language statement released to pro-Taliban media outlets, a senior member of the group’s so-called Rahbari Shura, or leadership council, has urged Taliban fighters “not to pay attention and desist from drawing conclusions” about the fate of Mansoor in the wake of “self-created” reports.
In the statement, an unnamed council member pointed to what he said were “enormous sacrifices” by the Taliban and added that the movement would not let the enemy divide and weaken the movement.
“The Islamic Emirate [the Taliban] will gain strength from the sacrifices of its leaders. All the members and other leaders in the movement think alike and are capable of leading come what may,” he asserted.
Another Taliban official, quoted in a separate statement, said that the movement would not “weaken and deter” even if news of the death of its leader was accurate. The group, he maintained, did not rely on any one individual and was capable of swiftly filling a leadership vacuum.
He asserted that the death of Mansoor, if true, would only boost the Taliban ranks and create additional security challenges for the United States and the Kabul regime.
Meanwhile, members of the leadership council of the Taliban have reportedly been meeting at an undisclosed location to elect their new leader and an announcement could be expected within the next couple of days.
But the Taliban has so far avoided publicly commenting on any development related to the fate of Mansoor.
Possible Mansoor successors
His two deputies, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Maulvi Haibatullah as well as Mullah Yaqoob, the elder son of the group’s founder, Mullah Omar, are said to be among the top contenders.
Observers with knowledge of Taliban affairs and even some insurgent sources suggest that Yaqoob, in his late 20s, could be the next Taliban leader.
He is currently commanding military operations in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Some Taliban officials believe Yaqoob’s elevation to the top position could help unify the insurgency and overcome divisions noted since last July when Mansoor took charge after it was confirmed Mullah Omar had been dead for more than two years.
President Barack Obama on Monday confirmed that Mansoor was killed in a drone attack on Saturday.
The Taliban leader was traveling in a vehicle in the southwestern Baluchistan province near the Afghan border when the missiles struck him. His driver, identified as Mohammad Azam, was also killed.
The bodies were transported to Quetta, where relatives were handed Azam’s remains in the presence of media. But it it still unclear what has happened to remains of the other body.
Taliban’s silence
Meanwhile, Taliban spokespeople have continuously been sending statements claiming battlefield successes since the U.S announced the killing of Mansoor on Saturday. But they have not responded to queries about the fate of their top leader.
An insurgent spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, assigned to discuss affairs in southern Afghanistan, on Tuesday denied Kabul’s claims that the Taliban’s shadow governor for southern Helmand province and a brother of the group’s late leader, Mullah Omar, were killed in overnight U.S. airstrikes in the area.
Omar’s brother, Mullah Abdul Manan, is also among the Taliban leaders being projected as possible successors for Mansoor.
Afghan commentators and politicians in media interactions have expressed fears the death of Mansoor will lead to more violence and appeared less optimistic about peace talks.
Impact on peace prospects
It put the final nail in attempts to find a political way of out of the Afghan conflict, said Marvin Weinbaum, director of the Center for Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute.
“None of the likely claimants to the Taliban’s helm is likely to join a peace process. Mansour’s death may set off a new leadership struggle, but is unlikely to weaken the insurgency in Afghanistan,” says Weinbaum.
Baluchistan borders western and southern Afghan provinces that are traditionally considered Taliban heartlands.
U.S and Afghan officials have long maintained that Taliban’s leadership council, usually referred to as Quetta Shura, has been operating from the Pakistani province.
“The direct order by President Barack Obama that Mansour be killed makes it clear that the Afghan conflict will be settled on the battlefield, not at a conference table,” Weinbaum.
Islamabad acknowledges presence of Taliban leaders on its side of the border, but blames the long porous frontier with Afghanistan.
Mansoor’s Pakistani passport and travel history, though the documents are under a pseudonym Wali Mohammad, suggest he lived and traveled freely and with impunity within Pakistan and was even allowed to travel abroad through the country’s airports to multiple destinations, including repeated trips to Dubai.
Pakistani officials, however, say an investigation is still underway to determine the identity of the second man killed in the US drone attack.
Based on the address in the Pakistani passport and national identification card, authorities in Karachi have also raided a residential apartment in the name of Wali Mohammad and several suspects have also been detained.
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You rats have inside information; that is how you use and exploit all the financed combatants against each othe to feed off the remains!
That is why you are well-known as
” PARASITE”.
This article is the proof for your sick interventions and manipulation .
You are sustaining a perpetual anarchy in Afghanistan.
It is clear that the enemies of the people of Afghanistan are striving hard to rein the unstablility under the religious dictatorship of their choice in Afghanistan.
The best available option, it looks like, would be to somehow pick a surrogate malleable leader to indirectly gain the upper hand in control of all Taliban movement and then conveniently send them out to Afghanistan.
A Pakistani indirect choice of the new leadership would be also welcomed as an ideal way of controlling Afghanista.
The “THUGS AND THUG-MARS” will keep on plotting to the end of this round of the game- just like a western style boxing match- all at the costs of local innocent lives.
* CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SICKNESS ?????
Traditionally, it has been the strong streaks of independent religious sentiments inside Afghanistan that kept villages, towns and cities free from complete dominations of the foreign thuggery and hegemony for more than last two hundred years- the highly-mobilized invaders experienced their utter failures several times since early 1800’s when they began declaring numerous,(direct or indirect), unilateral active states of wars on the peripheries or/and inside the borders of Afghanistan.
That is the reason, due to their prior first hand experience and historical knowledge, that they are so earnestly working for a special ideal deal in light of an extremely rare opportunity to neutralize the strong religious affiliations, and their supporting institutions. They are focusing on defeating and controlling the very core of the religious powerful leadership cadre in the region.
That is why, If the local and national religious leaders are not up to their line of political expectations and exploitations, they would be prevented, one way or another, from attaining the key social and political.positions.
That is the critical reality of the grim situation that we are facing in Afghanistan today- the savage foreign plotters and invaders want to control and call the shots on all aspects of the important social and political affairs of the country as they wish- which in the process, will mean automatic down grade in the status of the original residents, as second class citizens in their own country.
That is why the invaders are so extremely anxious and so extremely persistent in their unrealistic demand to forcefully bring the strong religious leaderships and institutions under their firm economic, military and political control- just like the successful political dominance that they have achieved and established over the political and social affairs of the Christian and Jewish leadership and institutions, now for a long long time, in the US and Europe.
The western religious establishments are totally dependent and are all dancing to the harsh drum beats of their megalomaniacs;!arrogant political party leaderships and bosses who are totally controlled by the whims of the mega-cooperation and super-rich. That is why you don’t hear any sincere words of sympathy, from the Christian and Jewish leaderships, to the plight of tens of millions of Muslims who have been suffering the brunt and ravages of the invasions and have had been especially ever since subjected to so extreme additional forms of savage negative propagandas and outright humiliations.
The Western leaders have never made any sincere peaceful overture, (at the international level ), other than fierce military responses; fake peace conferences and empty promises, to reconcile and open up respectful dialogues with the Islamic countries; especially since the Second World War- in spite of tremendous increase in close international interactions of all sorts and close diplomatic relations across all of the continents.
•••••
* WARMONGERS, MEGALOMANIACS AND PARASITIC INTEREST GROUPS WILL KEEP COMMITTING THEIR CRIMES, AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, IN FRON OF THE WHOLE WORLD, AS LONG AS THEY COULD GET AWAY WITH IMPUNITY.