NAYPYITAW: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour posed a “continuing imminent threat” to US personnel in Afghanistan and to Afghans, and was a threat to peace. US officials in Washington said on Saturday US missile-firing drones had attacked Mansour and probably killed him in a strike in southwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border, authorised by US President Barack Obama. “Yesterday, the United States conducted a precision…
Posts published in “Day: May 24, 2016”
KABUL: Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who according to US officials was probably killed in a drone strike, took over as head of the insurgent movement last July following the revelation that the group’s founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years. He was initially thought to favour peace talks with the government, but after becoming leader he repeatedly refused to come to the negotiating table. For some Mansour was the obvious choice…
ISLAMABAD: An American drone strike “likely killed” Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan on Saturday, US officials said. If confirmed, his death could change the course of the Afghan insurgency, which had grown fiercer under Mansour’s leadership. Mansour was appointed head of the Taliban in July 2015 following the revelation that the group’s founder Mullah Omar had in fact been dead for two years. He was widely blamed for leading…
WASHINGTON / KABUL: The United States carried out an air strike on the leader of the Afghan Taliban, probably killing him in a remote area just inside the Pakistan border in an operation likely to sink any immediate prospect for peace talks. If confirmed, the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour may open up a battle for succession and deepen fractures that emerged in the insurgent movement after the death of its founder Mullah Mohammad Omar…