This Article is From Jul 31, 2015

Death of Leader Exposes Festering Divisions Within the Taliban

Death of Leader Exposes Festering Divisions Within the Taliban

File picture of Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

KABUL, Afghanistan: With word of Mullah Mohammad Omar's death now getting out, most likely two years after the event, the world is catching up with a Taliban leadership crisis already in progress.

The questions the Taliban are wrestling with include not just who stands to succeed Omar as leader, but whether anyone has enough support to keep the insurgency from splintering irrevocably, especially over the issue of peace talks, according to Afghan and Western officials.

For the moment, the Taliban's deputy leader over the past five years, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, is the de facto leader of the group's governing body in exile, the Quetta Shura. He has had years to influence who rose among the Taliban's ranks, has the tacit acceptance of the group's Pakistani military monitors, and he has been the leader in a year when the Taliban have made their biggest military gains on the Afghan battlefield.

But interviews with a range Taliban members, including senior commanders in Afghanistan and leadership figures in Pakistan, suggest that the long-term question of who could lead the insurgency is far from settled. Most characterized the Taliban as being in discord, and two of the most senior militants, including a member of the Quetta Shura, said that the leadership question would be decided at a major council meeting in the coming days.

Afghan officials and Taliban members said two names were rising in leadership discussions: Mansour's, and that of Omar's oldest son, Yaqoub, a mullah in his mid-20s.

Some of the senior Taliban members said that Yaqoub had prominent support, including from Mullah Abdul Qayuum Zakir, a senior Taliban military commander. He and Mansour have long been rivals, officials said, and the Quetta Shura member said their differences had intensified over the question of whether to engage in peace talks.

For now, the talks, which opened with a meeting on July 7, appeared to be off while the Taliban discussed their future.

The Taliban officially acknowledged that Omar was dead only on Thursday, a day after Afghan officials announced that they had confirmed he had died in a Karachi-area hospital in 2013.
© 2015, The New York Times News Service
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