Taliban denies leader killed in US drone strike

[Insight]

Taliban denies leader killed in US drone strike - AJE News


Taliban denies leader killed in US drone strike

Taliban's Akhtar Mansoor and another fighter were targeted by a US drone strike in remote area of Pakistan.

|


The Taliban has denied reports that a US military drone strike had killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor and another fighter in Pakistan.
Earlier on Saturday, a US official said that the drone attack "likely killed" Mansoor inside Pakistani territory.
Authorised by US President Barack Obama, the strike took place at about 6 am EDT (1000 GMT), the official said, which would have placed it late on Friday night in the target area.


Inside Story - Should the US negotiate with the Taliban?

Multiple US drones targeted the men as they rode in a vehicle in a remote area in Pakistan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal, the official added.
The Pentagon confirmed that the US targeted Mansoor in a statement released on Saturday.
"We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said on Saturday in a statement, which did not address Mansoor's condition.


"Mansoor has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict."

Today DoD carried out a precision airstrike targeting Taliban leader Mullah Mansur. Another step to make our troops safer in Afghanistan
— Peter Cook (@PentagonPresSec) May 21, 2016

Explaining that the Taliban has denied its leaders were killed in US targeted assassinations in the past, former Afghan ambassador Omar Samad said the report that Mansoor was killed "has to be taken seriously".
"There has been an increase in the Taliban's casaulties," Samad told Al Jazeera. "This particular news, if confirmed again, is going to be a double blow to the Taliban - not only from a political leadership point of view, but I also think it will be translated on the battlefield."
Mullah Mansoor was appointed Taliban leader last year after the death of Mullah Umar. He has been part of the Taliban since 1995, a year after it was founded. He went on to hold important positions within the group.

[marwat]

Afghan have saying about american "they signal left but take turn right"

[Insight]

U.S. drone strike in Pakistan kills driver, passenger, not Mullah Mansoor -- Pakistani media - China.org.cn


U.S. drone strike in Pakistan kills driver, passenger, not Mullah Mansoor -- Pakistani media


Xinhua, May 22, 2016


The U.S. drone strike launched in Pakistan on Saturday (Pakistan time) killed a taxi driver and a passenger, but not Afghan Taliban top leader Mullah Mansoor, reported local Urdu TV channel Samaa on Sunday.
The report said that the bodies of the two killed have been brought to a hospital in Nushki, a district close to Ahmad Wal, a small town in Pakistan's southwest province of Balochistan along the Pak-Afghan border, where the U.S. drones launched a strike on Saturday afternoon, which reportedly killed the Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor.
According to the identity cards collected from the two bodies, the driver's name is Muhammad Azam and the passenger's name is Wali Muhammad, a resident from Chaman, a town sitting on the Pak-Afghan border, said the report, adding that the plate number of the taxi which got hit by the U.S. drone strike is ALL-570.
So far there is no official response from the Pakistani side about the death of Mullah Mansoor.
An official from ISPR, a mouthpiece of the Pakistani Army, refused to make any comments on the news about the death of Mullah Mansoor when approached by Xinhua reporter on the telephone.
Local Urdu TV Channel 92 News quoted an unidentified Taliban commander close to Mullah Mansoor as saying the report about the death of Mullah Mansoor was not true.
Al Jazeera, a TV channel based in the Gulf region, also reported that Taliban had denied the death of Mullah Mansoor.
Earlier some of the western and Pakistani media reported that Mullah Mansoor and one of his colleague was likely killed on Saturday when the U.S. drones fired two missiles at their vehicle moving in the town of Ahmad Wal.
The U.S. Pentagon, while confirming the drone strike in a remote area of the Pak-Afghan border region at about 3 pm (Pakistan time) on Saturday, said that the U.S. military was still assessing the results of the strike.
Born in 1960s, Mullah Mansoor was officially announced as the new top leader of Afghan Taliban on July 30, 2015, a day after the news about the death of former Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar was disclosed.
The news about the death of Mullah Mansoor came at a time when Afghan Taliban had refused to come back to the negotiation table despite the repeated efforts made by the Pakistani side along with other countries for the peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.