By Akhilesh Pillalamarri
The Afghan government has a unique opening with Omar’s death. It shouldn’t squander it.
It is now confirmed that the erstwhile leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, is no longer in this world. Moreover, he has been dead and buried (somewhere in Afghanistan) for over two years, unknown to most of the Taliban. The death of Mullah Omar changes the calculus in Afghanistan as it impacts ongoing negotiations between the Taliban and the government. It has been suggested that groups as disparate as the Afghan government, the Chinese government, and the West may all miss Mullah Omar because he was the glue that held the Taliban together and made negotiating with them meaningful.
In fact, the Taliban is already fragmenting and that is a good thing. It is precisely because top commanders did not want the movement to fragment that they kept Mullah Omar’s death secret; but now that the cat is out of the bag, it is too late to stuff it back in. In addition to Mullah Omar, another key Taliban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Network—allies of the Taliban based in Waziristan, Pakistan—was revealed to have died over a year ago (he is also buried in Afghanistan). With these important leaders gone, the Taliban is rudderless. An ally of the group and notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declared his support for the Islamic State last month.
The new leader of the Taliban is one Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, a seasoned veteran of the movement, but one who does not carry the support of many commanders or Mullah Omar’s family. In a statement released on Sunday, Mullah Omar’s younger brother Abdul Manan said that his family did not give a baiyat, or pledge of allegiance, to Mullah Mansour. Instead, they, and some other commanders are said to favor Mullah Omar’s son, Mulah Yaqub, for the role of Taliban leader—Mullah Yaqub is reported to have walked out of the Taliban leadership summit in Quetta, Pakistan.
Read the full story at The Diplomat