Rare drone strike: Kabul confirms Taliban chief’s death in Naushki

Mullah Mansoor targeted while driving to Quetta from Taftan

QUETTA: Less than a year after he stepped into the shoes of long-time Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor is believed to have been killed in a very rare US drone strike deep inside Pakistan, officials and sources confirmed on Sunday, more than 24 hours after a guessing game whirled around in the media about his death in a remote area of Balochistan.

Saturday’s deadly drone strike that targeted a car in the Kuchaki area of Naushki district, over 200 kilometres away from Quetta, also killed the driver, a civilian who worked for a local rental company, officials said, contradicting the US account that he was a ‘second combatant’.



The attack which came just days after a quartet discussed how to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table is likely to dash any immediate prospect for peace talks. If confirmed, Mansoor’s death may trigger a battle for succession and deepen fractures that emerged in the movement after the death of Mullah Omar was confirmed last year, more than two years after he had died.

Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook confirmed a strike targeting Mansoor but declined to speculate on his fate. US officials said the mission was authorised by President Barack Obama and included multiple drones.

However, Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah confirmed Mansoor had been killed. “Taliban leader Akhtar Mansoor was killed in a drone strike in Quetta, Pakistan, at 04:30 pm yesterday. His car was attacked in Dalbandin,” he said in a tweet, referring to a district in Balochistan.

Afghanistan’s main spy agency also confirmed Mansoor’s death. “He [Mullah Mansoor] was being closely monitored for a while… until he was targeted along with other fighters aboard a vehicle… in Balochistan,” the National Directorate of Security said in a statement.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Mansoor posed a ‘continuing, imminent threat’ to US personnel and Afghans. “If people want to stand in the way of peace and continue to threaten and kill and blow people up, we have no recourse but to respond and I think we responded appropriately,” Kerry told a news conference while on a visit to Myanmar.



The Taliban have made no official statement but sources close to the group led by Mansoor’s deputy Sirajuddin Haqqani said an emergency meeting of the Rahbari Shura, or leadership council had been called.  “There is still complete silence over reports about the killing of Mullah Mansoor,” one senior Taliban member said.

Where exactly was Mullah Mansoor targeted?

Official sources told The Express Tribune that Mansoor was traveling to Quetta from Taftan, a town on the border with Iran, when his car was targeted by a US drone in the Kuchaki area of Naushki district. “He entered Pakistan from Iran at Zero Point in Taftan at 3pm. He was travelling to Quetta in a rented car,” one official source said.

Residents corroborated the account. “We heard an ear-splitting explosion near the highway. And then we saw a car burning with two persons on board,” Nasrullah a resident of Kuchaki, told The Express Tribune.

Nobody knew who exactly the two men were. Law enforcers drove the bodies, which were charred beyond recognition, to the Civil Hospital Naushki, where they were identified as Muhammad Azad, s/o Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hassani and Muhammad Wali, s/o Shah Muhammad, resident of Killa Abdullah.



Later, the two corpses were shifted to the mortuary of the Provincial Sandeman Hospital in Quetta.

Sources told The Express Tribune that Muhammad Wali was actually Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. He travelled from Iran to Quetta using a counterfeit passport. “He entered Pakistan via Zero Point Gate of Iran at Taftan,” a second official source told The Express Tribune.

After crossing into Pakistan, Mansoor hired a car at Taftan border, the source said. According to other accounts, the car was already waiting for him there. The car driver identified as Muhammad Azam, a resident of Taftan, was also killed in the strike. Officials said the driver worked for the Al Habib car rental company based out of Quetta.

Officials confiscated the counterfeit passport of Mansoor which showed him a resident of Killa Abdullah district of Balochistan. The temporary address listed on his ID card was in Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2016.