Taliban talks in jeopardy as Omar’s death raises spectre of split

At the Taliban meeting this week where Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was named as the Islamist militant group’s new head, several senior figures in the movement, including the son and brother of late leader Mullah Omar, walked out in protest, foreign news agency Reuters reported on Friday.

The display of dissent within the group’s secretive core is the clearest sign yet of the challenge Mansour faces in uniting a group already split over whether to pursue peace talks with the Afghan government and facing a new, external threat – Islamic State.

Mansour, Omar’s longtime deputy who has been effectively in charge for years, favors talks to bring an end to more than 13 years of war. He recently sent a delegation to inaugural meetings with Afghan officials hosted by Pakistan, hailed as a breakthrough.

But Mansour, 50, has powerful rivals within the Taliban who oppose negotiations, notably battlefield commander Abdul Qayum Zakir, a former inmate of the US prison in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

Zakir is pushing for Mullah Omar’s son Yaqoob to take over the movement, and a sizeable faction also supports Yaqoob.

Yaqoob and his uncle Abdul Manan, Omar’s younger brother, were among several Taliban figures who walked out of Wednesday’s leadership meeting reportedly held in Quetta, according to three people who were at the Shura.

“Actually, it wasn’t a Taliban Leadership Council meeting. Mansoor had invited only members of his group to pave the way for his election,” one of the sources, a senior member of Taliban in Quetta, told Reuters.

“And when Yaqoob and Manan noticed this, they left the meeting.”

PEACE TALKS IN JEOPARDY:

Mansour leads the Taliban’s strongest faction and appears to control most of its spokesmen, websites and statements, said Graeme Smith, senior Afghanistan analyst for the think-tank International Crisis Group.

But some intelligence officials estimate Mansour only directly controls about 40 per cent of fighters in the field, he said. That could make it difficult for him to deliver on any ceasefire that could emerge from future negotiations.

And Taliban insiders say that by sending a three-member delegation to meet Afghan officials in the Pakistani resort of Murree earlier in July, Mansour sparked new criticism.

Especially riled were members of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, who insisted only they were empowered to negotiate.

“People … were not happy with Mullah Mansour‎ when he agreed with ‎Pakistan … to hold a meeting with Kabul,” said a Taliban commander based in Quetta.

“The Qatar office wasn’t taken into confidence before taking such an important decision.”

The Quetta Shura has sent a six-member team to Qatari capital Doha to meet with one of its leaders, Tayyab Agha, seeking his support for Mansour, according to another Taliban source close to the leadership.

RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN

The divisions threaten a formal split in the Taliban. They also provide an opening to rival Islamic State (IS), the Middle East-based extremist movement that has attracted renegade Taliban commanders in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This month, two Afghan militant groups swore allegiance to Islamic State, and more could follow suit.

Despite threats both internal and external, Taliban fighters have been gaining territory in Afghanistan, where they are trying to topple the Western-backed government.

This week another district, this time in the south, fell to insurgents, who have exploited the absence of most NATO troops after they withdrew at the end of last year.

Opponents of Mansour criticize him for being too close to Pakistan’s military, which has long been accused of supporting the Afghan insurgency to maintain regional influence.

Pakistan has pushed Taliban leaders based in its territory hard to come to the negotiating table at the request of ally China and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

But many Taliban, and some Afghan officials, fear the recent talks are a ploy by Pakistan to retain control. Pakistani officials denied that while talking to Reuters.

Still, Mansour cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, said Saifullah Mehsud of the Islamabad-based FATA Research Centre.

“No matter who is in charge of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they will have no choice but to have a good relationship with the Pakistani state. It’s a matter of survival,” Mahsud said.

“I don’t think this agreement to go to the negotiating table is determined by personality; it’s more about the circumstances.”

Despite the opposition, Mansour retains a personal power base within the Taliban, and if he can keep the movement together it could lead to a new era for the insurgents.

Bette Dam, author of an upcoming biography of Mullah Omar, said the supreme leader’s absence paralyzed many Taliban officials.

Mansour could provide a more active focus for both the movement’s rank-and-file and those seeking to engage the Taliban.

“If he gets the credibility, it might not be such bad news to have Mansour replace the invisible Mullah Omar,” she said.

SIRAJUDDIN HAQQANI MADE OPERATIONAL COMMANDER:

Meanwhile, in an attempt to lower tensions within the Afghan Taliban cadres, the Taliban Shura on Friday announced to make Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Network the operational commander of the insurgency.

According to Taliban sources, Sirajuddin will now decide on the operational issues of the Amarat-e-Islami Afghanistan. Earlier Sirajuddin was appointed as the second-in-command of Mullah Mansour.

Moreover, Maulvi Mohammad Yaqob, the son of former Taliban chief Mullah Umar, has now been appointed as the deputy chief of Afghan Taliban. Hayatullah, another important member of the Shura, has been appointed as the leader of political wing of Afghan Taliban. “His job would be to guide the Shura on political matters,” the sources added.

The sources, however, said that the differences still persist within the Taliban leadership.