“With regret the Muslim world has lost a great mentor,” Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesman Ihsannullah Ihsan said, referring to Mansour. He urged “the Mujahideen and all Muslims” not to grieve too long, and to “focus on fighting” their enemies.
Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the group’s top judicial officer, is the Taliban’s new emir. Siraj Haqqani, the Taliban’s military commander, remains one of the Taliban’s top two deputies. Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub, Mullah Omar’s eldest son, has been elevated to serve as a deputy to Haibatullah.
Baluchistan province has long been a major hub for the Afghan Taliban, replete with training camps, madrassa, mosques, and command and control centers. If the US does decide to step up attacks against the Taliban in Baluchistan, there is no shortage of targets.
“How could you fire something out of the sky and blow something up and kill people and not know what country it’s in? ,” a reporter responded incredulously to a State Department spokesman’s claim that the government didn’t know whether the US killed Taliban emir Mullah Mansour in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Pakistan has officially protested some US drone strikes in the past, typically when a so-called “good Taliban” leader is targeted. However Pakistan has occasional protested strikes that have targeted al Qaeda and the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan.
The White House confirmed the death of Taliban emir Mullah Mansour today, two days after the group’s top leader was targeted in an unmanned airstrike in Baluchistan province.
The National Directorate of Security claimed that Taliban Mullah Mansour died in yesterday’s airstrike but the US has yet to confirm his death.
Mullah Mansour was targeted in an airstrike in Baluchistan province. If Mansour is confirmed killed, one of his likely successors is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network who is closely tied to al Qaeda.
Afghan forces have been stretched thin attempting to fight the Taliban on multiple fronts. Forces are often shifted from one theater to another to take back ground from the Taliban, but once the military pulls back, the areas fall back under Taliban control.
The US military said it carried out a “counterterror mission” to rescue Ali Haider Gilani. Afghan officials said that al Qaeda was holding him hostage. Al Qaeda operated a training camp in Paktika as recently as the summer of 2015. Paktika is also a stronghold for the al Qaeda-allied Haqqani Network.
The Afghan Taliban said it would give “top priority” to government agencies involved in the execution of jihadist prisoners and claimed it has “thousands of fully armed martyrdom seekers” at its disposal who are “awaiting to take revenge.”
The attack, where Afghan forces turn on NATO personnel, is the first of its kind recorded in Afghanistan in more than a year.
The Ministry of Interior claimed it killed Haji Lala, the shadow governor of Kandahar and his deputy Ahmad Shah. The Taliban said its shadow governor and deputy for Kandahar are alive, and those identified by the MoI do not serve as the leaders of the province.
The unusual public call for information from USFOR-A follows the deadly suicide assault on a security installation in Kabul that took place on April 19.
In a video released earlier this month, the Taliban trumpeted the exchange of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five top Taliban commanders who were held at Guantanamo. The Taliban says this “achievement” was the result of its extensive operations in Afghanistan’s Paktika province.
“This attack is part of ongoing attacks against security forces and police,” the spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar said. “We believe the fighting will continue until we achieve the goal of implementing the Islamic system in Pakistan.”
The Taliban targeted a unit that is responsible for providing security for Afghan officials in a coordinated suicide assault in the Afghan capital. NATO’s commander claimed the Taliban won’t face security forces on the battlefield, ignoring the fact that the Taliban is openly engaging Afghan forces on multiple fronts.
The Taliban planted an IED on the landing pad at a remote military base in Kunar. The Afghan government had previously claimed the helicopter was damaged in an “emergency landing,” but the Taliban recorded the attack on video.
Since 2010, the US military and intelligence services have maintained that al Qaeda had a minimal presence of 50 to 100 operatives in Afghanistan. Now a senior general in Afghanistan admits the estimate needs to be revised. The Long War Journal has warned from the beginning that the conventional estimate was wrong.
A main goal of “Operation Omari” will be “clearing the remaining areas from enemy control and presence,” according to the Taliban.
Several members of the Islamic State Khorasan Provinces’ “central council” as well as other senior and mid-level leaders based in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar have broken their oath to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and have rejoined the Taliban.
Since Mullah Mansour was appointed the Taliban’s new emir in July 2015, the Taliban has consistently said that Zakir, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and senior military commander, has been a member of the Quetta Shura. Zakir formally swore allegiance to Mansour late last month.
Mullah Manan was named the head of the Taliban’s Preaching and Guidance Commission, while Mullah Yacoub is a member of the Quetta Shura and commands military operations in 15 provinces. Omar’s kin previously opposed the Taliban’s new leadership.
“The target was Christians,” the official spokesman of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan Jamaat-ul-Ahrar said after a suicide bomber killed more than 70 people, mostly women and children, at a park in Lahore.
Al Qaeda leaders Abu Yahya al Libi and Atiyah Abd al Rahman provided detailed feedback on the Movement of the Taliban’s proposed charter.
Over the past year, the Taliban have seized control of, or contested, a number of districts in a belt that spans southwestern Herat, eastern Farah, northern and central Helmand, Uruzgan, and northwestern Kandahar. The Taliban have historically used these safe havens to organize operations against neighboring districts and provincial capitals.
According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 204 former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent “activities.” The number of ex-detainees on the US government’s recidivist list has steadily grown since an estimate was first made public in June 2008.
Newly released documents from Osama bin Laden’s compound reveal that al Qaeda was skeptical about statements issued in Mullah Omar’s name. As of early 2010, bin Laden apparently was not communicating regularly with Omar. Letters from later that same year show, however, that bin Laden likely did begin corresponding with Omar. Bin Laden argued in one letter that the West had been weakened by the war in Afghanistan and the mujahideen simply needed to be patient.
The presence of Taliban prisons in Helmand highlights the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Helmand, where Afghan forces are losing ground to the jihadist group.
“The government itself, the military has been very cooperative and very engaged in the fight against terrorism,” Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite Pakistan’s continuing support of the Taliban and other jihadist groups.