The ongoing efforts to broker talks between the Taliban and Afghan officials, a US drone strike killed the Afghan Taliban group’s leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Pakistani soil.
A New York Times cartoon perfectly sums up the state of affairs following the death of the Afghan Taliban leader. One can see a befuddled Nawaz Sharif, an accusing Afghan Taliban militant and a nonchalant Obama, controlling the drone. As a bearded Taliban leader armed with a Kalashnikov points a finger at Nawaz screaming “I thought we were friends!” an obviously betrayed Nawaz disappointingly looks towards Obama with the same question.
.@PatChappatte on the drone strike that killed Mullah Mansour https://t.co/21RFlGvrG4 pic.twitter.com/xiiuWRfeN3
— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) May 24, 2016
The US killing of Taliban chief marks a significant shift for President Barack Obama, highlighting a new willingness to target the group’s leaders in Pakistan and risk retaliatory attacks against struggling Afghan security forces.
The move also shows that Obama has — at least for now — abandoned hopes of bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table for peace talks.
The Pak-US relationship has again taken a hit after the drone strike with the US accusing Pakistan of harbouring Afghan Taliban. “We killed the leader of the Taliban driving across Balochistan in a taxi,” a former senior State Department official told The New York Times. “I think we have some questions to ask of Pakistan.”
According to the media, Mansour had once appeared in favour of peace negotiations with the government in Kabul, but he had refused to join talks when he became Taliban chief.
However, Pakistan has not only expressed concern over the drone strike inside its territory, it has also questioned the claim that Mansour was opposed to talks.
Chaudhry Nisar, The Federal Interior Minister, on Monday, said the insurgents had almost agreed on declaring Kabul a ‘conflict-free zone’ in their first face-to-face meeting with Afghan officials in Murree last year.
The Pakistan-brokered Murree peace initiative broke down in July after the two-year-old death of longtime Taliban leader Mullah Omar was leaked to the media.
“The second direct contact [between the Taliban and Afghan officials] was scheduled for July 31, but it was sabotaged at the eleventh hour by leaking the news of Mullah Omar’s death to the media,” Chaudhry Nisar, told a news conference in Islamabad. He also hinted that the Taliban’s participation in the Murree process had full blessings of Mansour.
a death cannot effectively be hidden
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