Afghan Taliban confirm Mulla Omar’s death

KABUL: The Taliban on Thursday confirmed the death of their leader Mulla Omar, while the Shura named Mulla Akhtar Mansour as his successor.
The militants said Mulla Omar died of “sickness”, citing family members, a day after the Afghan government said the one-eyed warrior-cleric had passed away in Pakistan two years ago.
Mulla Omar’s death marks a significant blow to the Taliban, who are riven by internal divisions and threatened by the rise of the Islamic State group, the Middle East militant outfit that is making steady inroads in Afghanistan.
“The leadership of the Islamic Emirate and the family of Mulla Omar...announce that leader Mulla Omar died due to a sickness,” a Taliban statement said, using the movement’s official name.
Mulla Omar had not been seen publicly since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban government in Kabul.Haseeb Sediqi, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, told AFP on Wednesday that Mulla Omar died in hospital in Karachi “under mysterious circumstances”.
The Taliban statement did not say when he died but said “his health condition deteriorated in the last two weeks” and “not for a single day did he go to Pakistan”. It added that three days of religious ceremonies would be held “to pray for the soul of Mulla Omar”.
After confirmation of Mulla Omar’s death, the Taliban Shura have elected Mulla Akhtar Mansour as the new Afghan Taliban supreme leader.“The council also elected Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is known as Khalifa, the chief of Haqqani, as deputy of the Taliban’s leader,” the local media reported quoting a Taliban leader.
The Taliban leader reportedly said the formal announcement in this regard is likely to be made soon.The incumbent Taliban supreme leader, Akhtar Mansour, had served as the aviation minister during the Taliban regime. Mulla Mansour was the likely successor along with Mulla Baradar Akhund of the deceased Taliban supreme leader. Earlier, it was speculated in the Taliban circles that Mansour’s position had been widely damaged for spreading news of Mulla Omar’s death. —Agencies
Mariana Baabar adds from Islamabad: The second round of the Afghan peace talks, which were scheduled to be held in Pakistan today (Friday) in Murree, ran into difficulties with dangers of collapsing as Pakistan announced that in view of reports regarding the death of Mulla Omar, and at the request of the Afghan Taliban leadership, the Murree talks were being postponed.
As reports came in about changes in Afghan Taliban leadership where Mulla Akhtar Mansour has been announced as the new supreme leader, Pakistan reached out to the new Taliban leadership. “Pakistan and other friendly countries of Afghanistan hope that the Taliban leadership will stay engaged in the process of peace talks in order to promote lasting peace in Afghanistan,” the spokesman at the Foreign Office announced.
Mansour has been supporting the Afghan peace talks in Murree but as yet there is expected confusion among the Taliban which today is a fragmented outfit where several field commanders are against the Murree talks.
Pakistan, the host of the Afghan peace talks which saw an earlier round being attended by representatives of President Ashraf Ghani and senior members of the Afghan Taliban, also warned those elements without naming them not to ‘undermine’ these peace efforts which would have an effect on the whole region.
The decision to postpone the Murree talks was taken suddenly because earlier in the afternoon the spokesman indicated that the peace talks were on schedule.
“Pakistan has been facilitating an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan. Efforts are being made for facilitating the second round of peace talks between the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government. However, I do not have details in this regard as of now,” he had said before announcing the postponement of the talks.
Adding more confusion to the issue was the spokesman at the Foreign Office who when asked earlier at a media briefing about official reports from the Kabul government confirming Omer’s death said that Pakistan was still “verifying their veracity”.
“We have seen reports about Mulla Omar’s death. Rumours about his death have been circulating for some time now. Our authorities, therefore, are trying to check the veracity of the reports,” he responded.
Hours later, he appeared to be confirming the death of the Taliban leader when he pointed to reports about his death.“It is further hoped that those forces, which due to their malafide intent wanted to undermine the peace talks, will not succeed in their designs,” the spokesman added.Pakistan also informed China and the United States about the postponement at a time the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel F Feldman was in Islamabad.