A carefully coordinated effort to revive peace talks between Taliban insurgents and Afghan officials could be in trouble after reports that militant chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was shot in Pakistan. Talks that stalled less than six months ago due to a change of leadership among the Taliban may again suffer the same fate, analysts warned.
Mansoor and several senior Afghan Taliban leaders were either injured or killed in south-western Pakistan during a meeting of senior insurgent leaders, according to sources in the militant group. The shootout occurred at a critical time, defence analyst Saad Muhammad said.
"A prolonged recovery [by Mansoor] will be as bad for efforts for talks as Mansoor's death, as it would weaken [the Taliban's] centralised control and possibly lead to a further fragmentation of the insurgent group," he said. Mullah Akbar Agha, a former Taliban fighter turned analyst, said that although he did not personally believe Mansoor was injured, such an event "could mean a halt in peace talks, as we have witnessed before."
The reported attack came about a week ahead of a scheduled visit by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders. The meeting on the sidelines of a regional conference will cover a possible resumption of talks with the rebels, and comes the week after he held talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Paris.
Islamabad has acted as a facilitator of talks between the Kabul and the insurgent group. The meeting with Ghani in Islamabad would discuss "how the two countries and the US and China can work together to pick up the thread of the reconciliation process, from where it left off in July," Sharif said in a statement after the meeting in France. Officials from Pakistan, US and China were also present during the talks in July, which was the first time that the Taliban and Afghan officials had met openly.
A second round of talks was called off at the last minute following the announcement of the death of Taliban founder and leader Mullah Omar. After some internal division over the new leader, Omar's trusted deputy Mansoor emerged as the new chief, rekindling hopes for fresh talks. But news of the shootout in Pakistan follows reports of a rival group opposed to Mansoor's leadership.
Afghans will now want to know "who is now controlling Taliban, if Mansoor was seriously injured or dead," according to Muhammad. Such concerns could overshadow Ghani's trip to Islamabad and plans for fresh talks, he said. He also feared a new scramble for power which will badly hit war-torn Afghanistan.
"Death of the Taliban chief at this stage might take the county back to the situation of the post-Soviet withdrawal as the power struggle would intensify," he said. Agha however ruled out such differences even if Manoor were to die. "I do not think that Taliban will be without a leader for long. Mullah Omar was the most well-known Taliban leader and when he died, the group did not have any issues choosing a new leader and nor will they if Mullah Mansoor dies in the future."