Mullah Mansour’s killing

The killing of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in a drone strike in Balochistan on Saturday shows how Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan are all working at cross-purposes. For Pakistan, the drone attack is yet again a source of embarrassment. Even as the international media was reporting Mansour’s killing, our government had nothing to say. It took more than one day for the government to give any statement and even then it only parroted what was already in the news. This once again shows how directionless our foreign policy is, where it takes us so long to formulate a response to an important event – and even then we have nothing of value to add. The situation is made worse by the fact that, three years into the tenure of this government, we still do not have a permanent foreign minister, with Tariq Fatemi and others filling the role on an ad-hoc basis. It turned out that US Secretary of State John Kerry only informed Nawaz Sharif of the attack on Saturday night which, if true, is a startling indictment of our intelligence capabilities. Multiple drones were able to violate our airspace and we did not know anything about it. Our intelligence agencies also need to explain how Mansour, like so many militant leaders before him, was found on Pakistani soil. From Osama bin Laden to Mullah Omar, we have kept denying that militants are in Pakistan but they keep getting killed here. First we have the militants violating our sovereignty by being here and then the US further violates it by entering our territory and killing them.

For the US and Afghanistan, this drone attacks throws up many questions about their commitment to pursuing peace talks with the Afghan Taliban. At the recent Quadrilateral Crisis Group meeting in Islamabad, both countries joined Pakistan and China in calling for a negotiated settlement – but the droning of Mansour all but puts paid to that. Afghanistan, despite paying lip service to talks, had signalled its intention to move away from negotiations, by only sending its ambassador to Islamabad for the QCG meeting. It had also been increasingly belligerent in its tone after the Taliban launched their spring offensive. But President Obama has called for the Taliban to come to the negotiating table after announcing that the US had just killed its leader. To put it mildly, that makes little sense. The Taliban may face another succession battle of their own, with deputy Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, who is the son of former leader Mullah Omar, expected to battle for the leadership. Whoever emerges victorious, though, we can be reasonability certain that the US drone campaign has claimed a victim in the form of an immediate prospect for peace talks.