Senior Taliban sources doubt Mansoor alive

Say audio message released a day earlier might be fake

KABUL: Senior sources within the Taliban on Sunday cast doubt on the authenticity of an audio message purporting to prove Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was alive as Afghan officials said they were working to verify the clip.

The insurgent group released the 16-minute file on late Saturday following reports citing multiple intelligence and militant sources claiming the Taliban chief was killed in a firefight on Tuesday inside Pakistan.

But doubts continued to linger among the group’s senior ranks, who are distrustful of their leadership following a two-year cover-up of the death of the Taliban’s founder and first leader Mullah Omar.

“I think it’s a faked audio. I believe he’s dead,” a senior Taliban source told AFP on Sunday, adding that the group is buying time to select a new leader and bring their organisation out of “this sudden shock.”

“We need more proof,” he concluded.

A second senior source added: “I am not satisfied after hearing the clip that it belongs to Mansoor,” while a third said Mansoor succumbed to his injuries on Thursday.

In the message, a man purporting to be Mansoor said: “I have recorded this message to let everyone know that I am alive.”

Rahimullah Yousufzai, a Pakistani analyst and long-time observer of the Taliban, said the voice sounded like Mansoor’s. “I believe it is him,” he said, but added questions would be asked over the delay in releasing the clip.

“Why did they wait almost five days to do that? If they’d done it earlier it might have been more effective,” he said. He added that uncertainty within the ranks had been compounded by the mystery surrounding the death of Mullah Omar.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th,  2015.