KABUL/ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office Spokesman Nafees Zakaria said on Sunday that Pakistan is “seeking clarification” about a United States (US) drone strike against Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
He said, “I have seen the reports. We are seeking clarification”. He also said that Pakistan wanted the Taliban to return to the negotiating table to end the long war in Afghanistan and military attacks are not the way forward. “Military action is not a solution,” he added. While the US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that he had notified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by telephone of a US drone strike that ‘likely killed’ Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mansour.
Kerry said that Afghan leadership was also apprised of the air strike declining to elaborate on the timing of the notifications. On Saturday, the US officials in Washington said that US missile-firing drones had conducted strikes targeting Mullah Akhtar and killed him in a strike in Balochistan near the Afghan border. “Yesterday, the US conducted a precision air strike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He posed a continuing, imminent threat”, Kerry told a news conference in the Myanmar capital.
The drone attack comes just days after representatives from the US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan held another round of negotiations in Islamabad aimed at reviving long-stalled direct peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. “This action sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to stand with our Afghan partners as they work to build a more stable, united, secure and prosperous Afghanistan,” Kerry said. “Peace is what we want. He was a threat to that effort and to bringing an end to the violence and suffering people of Afghanistan have endured for so many years now. He was also directly opposed to the peace negotiation and to the reconciliation process,” he added.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office on Sunday confirmed the strike. The Taliban have confirmed the death of Mullah Akhtar in an announcement early on Sunday. Mullah Akhtar had swiftly consolidated power after a bitter struggle of succession in the Taliban lines and now his elimination can spark such a battle again within the Taliban leadership lines.
“The Afghan government is trying to gather details regarding the fate of Mullah Mansour,” the Afghan presidential palace said in a statement before the confirmation of his death came from a senior Taliban leader. “This drone strike shows that terrorists fuelling conflict will not be safe anywhere.” Mansour was formally appointed head of the Afghan Taliban in July last year following the revelation that the group’s founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.
The group saw resurgence under this new leader with striking military victories, helping to cement his authority by burnishing his credentials as a commander. Taliban also managed to briefly capture the strategic northern city of Kunduz in September in their most spectacular victory in 14 years. Southern opium-rich Helmand province is almost entirely under insurgent control. According to US officials, Mullah Akhtar’s death has removed a hurdle in the peace process. However, it remains a matter of time to tell how true that turns out to be is for the time to tell.
