SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMESURL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-leader-mullah-mansour.html?_r=0by: MUJIB MASHAL
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KABUL, Afghanistan — The leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, was killed by an American drone strike, the Afghan intelligence agency said on Sunday.
Some Taliban commanders vehemently denied that Mullah Mansour was present in the area of the strike, which occurred on Saturday near the Afghan border in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, but a statement from the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, was unambiguous.
“Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the leader of the Taliban group, was killed around 3:45 p.m. yesterday as a result of an airstrike in Dalbandin area of Baluchistan Province in Pakistan,” the statement said. “He had been under close surveillance for a while, until his vehicle was struck and destroyed on the main road in the Dalbandin area.”
The United States did not offer confirmation of its own.
“We are confident, but at this point we do not have indisputable facts that he is dead,” said Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said on Sunday.
Pakistan was not informed of the strike beforehand, said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss confidential operational details.
Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking on Sunday in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, where he was visiting the nation’s new civilian government, was the first senior official to talk about the targeted attack. He repeatedly referred to Mr. Mansour in the past tense.
Asked if Pakistan had been kept in the dark about the operation until it was complete — which is what happened with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 — Mr. Kerry said he would not say “when we communicated.” But he indicated that he had talked with Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, on Sunday morning, after the strike was announced.
“We have long said that Mansour posed an imminent threat to us and to Afghan civilians,” he said. “This action sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to work with our Afghan partners.”
Mr. Kerry suggested that the attack would not derail peace talks, because he said Mr. Mansour had been opposed to any such negotiations. “He was directly opposed to the peace process,” he said.
Mullah Mansour’s death could add to the Taliban’s leadership difficulties less than a year after the death of their founding leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was revealed.
The news could also be a boost to the struggling government of President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, as the Obama administration has finally carried out what the United States had been reluctant to for 15 years: a strike against the Afghan Taliban in their sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Although the United States has repeatedly targeted leaders of Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, this is the first time a senior Afghan Taliban leader has apparently been struck on Pakistani soil.
Mullah Hameedi, a top Taliban military commander in southern Afghanistan who confirmed a strike in the border area but denied that Mullah Mansour was there, said: “We are going to persuade Mullah Mansour to publish his audio record to confirm he is alive.”
The strike, carried out by several unmanned aircraft operated by United States Special Operations forces, was authorized by President Obama, American officials said.
Mullah Mansour rose to the Taliban leadership after the death of Mullah Omar in 2013 was revealed last summer. A former aviation minister lacking battlefield expertise, he ascended through the ranks of the insurgents gradually but was seen as a crucial figure in the Taliban’s regrouping after an initial defeat following the American-led invasion in 2001. Once he rose to the movement’s No. 2 position, he began a cunning campaign of sidelining rivals and creating a monopoly over resources and decision-making.
After a very public leadership confirmation last summer in front of large gatherings of Taliban in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, Mullah Mansour had limited his movements, Afghan officials said. While the reason given to his subordinates was security — he narrowly missed an attempt on his life, attributed to dissidents within the Taliban ranks, in December — keeping the leader at a distance from the commanders followed a pattern that became routine under Mullah Omar.
At the same time, Mullah Mansour’s deputies, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is largely running battlefield operations, have continued to move freely in Pakistan.
Even as the Taliban operating inside Afghanistan remained a formidable and violent force, Mullah Mansour had difficulties uniting his ranks. He brutally quashed breakaway groups and sought to buy the support of other skeptical commanders, all while maintaining a publicity campaign that portrayed him atop a united command.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud from Islamabad, Pakistan. David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
