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Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor killed in US drone strike on Pakistan US drone strike in Pakistan kills Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor
(35 minutes later)
The Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor has been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan, the militant group and the Kabul government have confirmed. The leader of the Afghan Taliban has been killed by a US drone strike in an area of Pakistan hitherto off-limits for the remote-controlled aircraft, sources confirmed on Sunday.
Both the Afghan government and members of the insurgent movement said Mullah Mansoor had been killed by an attack in the southern Pakistani province of Balochistan in an operation involving multiple drones. Earlier, the US Department of Defense said Mansoor had been targeted while travelling in convoy near the town of Ahmad Wal.
The killing of the Taliban leader is likely to have major ramifications both for efforts to kickstart peace talks and for the often stormy relationship between the US and Pakistan.
Related: Death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor likely to enrage PakistanRelated: Death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor likely to enrage Pakistan
A senior Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Rauf, told Associated Press (AP) on Sunday that Mansoor died in the strike on Friday night. Rauf said the strike took place “in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area”. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, speaking in Myanmar on Sunday, said Mansoor “posed a continuing imminent threat to US personnel in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians, Afghan security forces” and members of the US and Nato coalition.
The office of the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, confirmed the death on Twitter: He said the air strike on Mansoor sent “a clear message to the world that we will continue to stand with our Afghan partners”.
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan confirms the drone attack on Mullah Akhtar Mansour by the United States Forces. (1/n) “Peace is what we want. Mansoor was a threat to that effort,” Kerry said. “He also was directly opposed to peace negotiations and to the reconciliation process. It is time for Afghans to stop fighting and to start building a real future together.”
It blamed the attack on his “refusal to answer repeated calls” to end violence in the country. Mullah Abdul Rauf, a senior commander of the militant group, said later that Mansoor had died in the strike. The office of Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, also confirmed the death, saying Mansoor had “refused to answer repeated calls” to end the war in the country.
On Saturday the US Department of Defense said it had conducted the strike targeting Mansoor “in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region”. It did not confirm Mansoor’s death, but an official told AP he was believed to have been killed along with another male in the attack, which took place south-west of the Pakistani town of Ahmad Wal. Mullah Akhtar Mansour refused to answer repeated calls by the people & Govt of Afghanistan to end the war & violence in the country. (2/n)
The Pentagon statement said Mansoor was “the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel and coalition partners”. Local government officials in Ahmad Wal said a destroyed taxi belonging to man called Mohammad Azam had been recovered. The driver’s brother Mohammad Qasim said he did not know the identity of the passenger but that he had been on a long drive with a customer from Afghanistan.
Mansoor was “an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban”, the Pentagon said, “prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict”. Mansoor’s death came days after diplomats from Pakistan, Afghanistan, US and China held the latest round of talks in Islamabad about a flagging effort to draw the Taiban into peace negotiations.
It is unusual for the US to offer such detailed commentary about a drone strike in Pakistan. Because drones are part of a highly classified CIA programme, officials usually say they are unable to even acknowledge the use of the aircraft, let alone confirm who was targeted. The Taliban was plunged into factional fighting in 2015 when it was revealed that the former Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been dead for nearly two years, with Mansoor running the organisation in his name. After asserting his control, Mansoor redoubled the Taliban’s campaign of violence within Afghanistan, even succeeding in briefly capturing the major city of Kunduz. It is not known whether Pakistan was forewarned about the operation or whether it gave its consent for a strike that seems at odds with its stated strategy of attempting to broker peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban.
US officials said the Saturday drone strike was near the town of Ahmad Wal. It appeared to be the first ever known strike in the vast southern province of Balochistan. Nearly all previous drone attacks have been tightly constrained to specific areas of North and South Waziristan – tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan where the US is thought to have negotiated secret arrangements with Pakistan. In recent weeks, Pakistan has resisted Afghan calls for military action against “irreconcilable” members of the Taliban saying such a move would be counterproductive. Officially the country objects to all US airstrikes on its territory, although State Department cables leaked by the website Wikileaks support claims by US officials that Islamabad secretly gives it consent. But almost all previous attacks have been tightly constrained to specific areas of North and South Waziristan, tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan that were until recently largely controlled by militant groups.
It would be an extraordinary step for the US to range so far out of bounds without a nod from Islamabad, particularly given the strong assistance Pakistan is thought to have given to Mansoor to win the power struggle that rocked the Taliban after it was revealed former leader Mullah Omar was dead. Saturday’s strike, on an open road at 3.45pm local time, was the first known strike in Balochistan, the vast southern province that is home to many senior Taliban leaders. Islamabad has staunchly resisted Afghan demands for action against insurgent sanctuaries on Pakistani soil. It also backed Mansoor in his efforts to shore up control of a fast-splintering movement.
To the anger of the government in Kabul, Pakistan had insisted that it would not use force against the Taliban leadership but instead wanted to try to coax them to join peace talks. On Sunday, the Pakistani government said it was still “analysing reports” of Mansoor’s death and could not comment. Some analysts and diplomats think Pakistan might have agreed to the strike, even if it would never dare say so publicly for fear of enraging public opinion and provoking violent attacks by Afghan militants in Pakistan.
The Pakistani policy had conspicuously failed to deliver results. Diplomats from Afghanistan, the US, China and Pakistan held their fifth “quadrilateral” peace discussions only on Wednesday, but with little prospect of the Taliban ever sending representatives. “Pakistan has a history of offering up sacrifices to the Americans when the political heat gets intense,” a western official in Kabul said. “These gestures of goodwill have never diminished the intensity of Pakistan’s proxy war against Afghanistan, and it’s unlikely that the death of Mansour will be any different.”
The issue of drones has in the past caused aggravation between Washington and Islamabad. The official said insurgent violence could increase if the death of Mansoor led to an especially lethal Taliban faction known as the Haqqani Network taking a greater control over the movement.
Although relations between the two countries have been reasonably friendly in the last two years, top foreign affairs official Sartaj Aziz recently admitted to deep disagreements after Washington announced restrictions on the sale of advanced fighter jets. In recent weeks Islamabad and Washington have been arguing about a deal to buy F16 fighter jets which has been jeopardised by the US Congress, which voted to block $450m (£310m) in military aid unless Pakistan takes various steps, including tackling the Haqqani network, which enjoys sanctuary in Pakistan.
In August a Taliban commander who asked to stay anonymous said Mansoor was a relative moderate, “known among fighters in the field as more into peace talks than Mullah Omar, and less strict”. Ismail Qasemyar, a member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, a body tasked with negotiating with the Taliban, predicted Mansoor’s death would lead to a short-term surge in violence. “However, if Pakistan uses its sway over the movement to influence the pick of the next leader, it could choose to drive it toward reconciliation,” he said, adding that internal rifts in the Taliban could be healed if the leadership went to a member of Mullah Omar’s family.
Mansoor was a founding member of the Taliban, who knew Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden personally. He emerged as leader after Omar’s death, following a period of internal dissension. Saturday’s strike was also notable for being carried out by the US military and therefore with far greater transparency than under the officially clandestine CIA drone programme. Whereas details about the hundreds of drone strikes conducted by the CIA are almost never made public, on Sunday the Department of Defense gave extensive information about the operation to kill Mansoor.
In December he was reported to have been injured in a gunfight between insurgent factions in Pakistan. In Afghanistan on Saturday, a police official said six officers were shot and killed by colleagues who turned their guns on them at a checkpoint in the volatile southern Uruzgan province. Mohammad Hasham, head of police in the Charchino district, told AP the shooting happened in the early hours of the morning. Three of the gunmen escaped the scene, he said, taking weapons and vehicles with them.
The Pentagon statement added: “Since the death of Mullah Omar and [Mansoor’s] assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous US and coalition personnel.”
Related: Mullah Akhtar Mansoor: Taliban's new leader has a reputation for moderation
In Afghanistan on Saturday, a police official said six officers were shot and killed by colleagues who turned their guns on them at a checkpoint in the volatile southern Uruzgan province.
Mohammad Hasham, head of police in the Charchino district, told AP the shooting happened in the early hours of the morning. Three of the shooters escaped the scene, he said, taking weapons and vehicles with them.
The incident followed another in the capital, Kabul, on Friday, when an Afghan security guard at a United Nations compound shot two Nepalese guards, killing one.The incident followed another in the capital, Kabul, on Friday, when an Afghan security guard at a United Nations compound shot two Nepalese guards, killing one.
In southern Zabul province on Thursday, eight police officers were shot dead by a colleague. The Taliban, who have been fighting the Kabul government for 15 years, are often behind such attacks.