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Afghanistan
Fierce clashes between rival Afghan Taliban factions
2015-11-09
[DAWN] Fierce festivities have erupted between two rival Taliban groups in southern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, reportedly leaving dozens dead in the first internecine fighting since a breakaway faction of the Islamist movement appointed its own leader.

The skirmish was taking place in southern Zabul province between fighters loyal to the widely-recognised Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor and followers of Mansoor Dadullah, a deputy of splinter-group leader Mohammed Rasool who announced his own faction Tuesday.

"The fighting started from early Saturday morning in Khak-e-Afghan and Arghandab districts of Zabul province. About 60 fighters of Mullah Dadullah and 20 of Akhtar Mansoor have been killed," Ghulam Jilani Farahi the deputy police chief for the province told AFP, adding 30 others were maimed.

The two districts are under Taliban control, and it was unclear how Farahi arrived at his figures.

"The fighters killed are mostly from Mansour Dadullah's group, including imported muscle from Uzbekistan," he said.

Islam Gul Seyal, the provincial governor's front man, confirmed the battle and said fighting was still going on.

Mansoor Dadullah was appointed as second deputy for Rasool, who was named the leader of the splinter group in a mass gathering of dissident fighters on October 3, in the remote southwestern province of Farah, according to an AFP news hound who attended the meeting.

It was unclear whether the new group could rally wide support but its emergence poses a fresh hurdle to potential peace talks with the government.

It also exposes simmering rifts within the movement since the announcement in July of the death of longtime leader Mullah Omar
... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality....
Al Ahram adds:
Fighters in a breakaway faction led by Mullah Mohammad Rasool have been joined by Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 holy warriors, according to Mohmand Nostrayar, governor of the Arghandab district of Zabul province.

It is unclear how much support there is for Rasool, a veteran Taliban official. A Taliban capo loyal to Mansoor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to news hounds, said Rasool's faction had joined forces with IS gunnies because it didn't have the numbers otherwise.

"It is obvious that Mullah Rasool's group can't face Akhtar Mansoor alone so they need IS. We said that before and now it has been proven," he said.
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Afghanistan
Three mediators killed in Taliban clash in Zabul
2015-09-08
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Three mediators who were trying to end fighting between two rival Taliban groups have been killed in the clash in southern Zabul province.

General Mirwais Noorzai, police chief of Zabul province said that fighting between two rival groups of Taliban increases in the jurisdiction of Khak-e-Afghan and Arghandab districts.

Noorzai further said that fresh festivities have left five faceless myrmidons from both sides killed in Khak-e-Afghan District.

According to Noorzai, when fighting between the supporters of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour and the ones following Mullah Mansour Dadullah continues to rage then local elders try to mediate.

"Three community elders were killed while mediating," he said.

Taliban infighting began following the rifts within the leadership of the hard boy group over the appointment of new Supreme Leader.

One group pledged allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour after he was announced as the replacement for Mullah Omar
... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality...
 at the end of July but another group containing Mullah Mansour Dadullah, Mullah Abdul Manan and some other notorious commanders opposes him.

This group wants Mullah Omar's son Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub to be the successor to his father.

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India-Pakistan
Taliban Hold Open Meetings in Pakistan to Discuss Leadership
2015-08-07
[Tolo News] Senior members of the Taliban are reportedly holding open meetings in Pakistan to discuss the disputed appointment of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as the group's new chief in the wake Mullah Omar's death.
What fun! Can we send a delegate, too? I'm certain that a few of us have opinions...
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, while confirming Mullah Omar's death, in a statement earlier this month announced that Mullah Mansour would be the successor to the late supreme leader and original founder of the group. The Afghan government has maintained Omar died two years ago at a hospital in Pakistan's port city of Karachi.

Several top Taliban leaders have expressed strong opposition to Mansour's leadership, calling him a puppet of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).

Sources within the Afghan government told TOLOnews on condition of anonymity on Thursday that scores of Taliban members - including both those who agree and disagree with Mansour's appointment - met with clerics in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on Wednesday to resolve the dispute over Omar's successor.

The names of those within the Taliban who are said to endorse Mansour's leadership are as follows: Mawlavi Abdul Kabir, Abdul Hassan Akhund, Mohammad Rassoul Akhund, Abdul Latif, Mansour Ibrahim Sadar, Abdul Rashid Shinwari, Abbas Akhund, Mohammad Essa Akhund, Mawlavi Abdul Rahim, Mawlavi Abdul Nabi, Mawlavi Mohammad Reza, Mawlavi Mohammad Nadim, Shahabuddin Dilawar, Mawlavi Jan Mohammad, Qazi Din Mohammad, Mawlavi Nek Mohammad and Mohammad Zahir Ahmadzai.

Meanwhile, the list of those thought to disagree with Mansour's appointment is also extensive: Mohammad Yaqoub (Mullah Omar's eldest son), Abdul Manan (Mullah Omar's brother), Abdul Raziq Akhund, Abdul Mobin Akhund, Mohammad Hassan Rahmani, Abdul Raouf Akhund, Abdul Bari Akhund, Abdul Rahman Zahid, Anwar-ul-Haq Mujahid, Mansour Dadullah, Mawlavi Hamza, Abdul Manan Niazi, Abdul Qayoum Zakir, Zabihullah, Mawlavi Shireen, Mohammad Akhtar Mohammadzai, Gull Pacha Amiri and Janan Haq Parast.

Some political analysts, meanwhile, have said the Pakistani government is seeking to exploit divisions within the Taliban's ranks.

"It has always been said that Pakistan is using the Taliban leaders as a tool, and now this issue, once again, has been raised after the Taliban overtly began their activities and movement in Pakistan," political commentator Javed Kohistani said.

Other commentators believe the recent Taliban gathering in Pakistan is evidence of Pakistani clerics' attempt to stop the group from splintering.

"There were the same issues during Jihad; when the Mujahideen divided into many groups, Pakistan brought all of them to one table," National Solidarity Movement leader Sayed Ishaq Gilani told TOLOnews. "Now the same thing is happening to the Taliban; Pakistani clerics are trying to use the group as a tool."
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India-Pakistan
Pakistan's missing ambassador being held by Taliban
2008-04-20
PAKISTAN'S ambassador to Afghanistan, who went missing in February in the Khyber region, appeared on Arabic television yesterday saying he was being held by the Taliban and urging Islamabad to meet their demands. Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin appeared in a video tape on Al Arabiya television surrounded by armed militants to make his first public statement since he disappeared. "We were kidnapped by Mujahedin from the Taliban," the ambassador, wearing an open-necked shirt and looking calm, said in remarks translated from Urdu into Arabic.

Scores of people have been kidnapped in the dangerous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the ambassador's disappearance highlighted instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan – a major ally in the US-led crackdown on militants. The Pakistani government had not publicly confirmed he had been kidnapped, but a senior government official said yesterday Azizuddin was being held by militants who were demanding the release of their arrested colleagues.

In a message to Pakistan's foreign ministry undersecretary, its envoys to China and Iran, and his brother, Azizuddin said: "Because of my health condition I… appeal to them to do all they can to preserve our lives and meet the demands of the Taliban Mujahedin as soon as possible."

The ambassador was on his way to Kabul from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on February 11 when he disappeared along with his driver and bodyguard in the Khyber tribal region. Azizuddin said he, his driver and bodyguard had been held for 27 days at the time the tape was filmed.

According to a senior Arabiya journalist, the ambassador spoke about "the release of any Muslim held in Pakistan whose release is demanded by the Taliban". This appeared to refer to Taliban commander Mullah Mansour Dadullah held by Pakistan, the Arabiya journalist said, adding the tape was sent to the offices of Dubai-based Arabiya. Two days after he went missing, a spokesman for Pakistani Taliban militants denied they had kidnapped Azizuddin and the foreign ministry denied media speculation that the Taliban had demanded the release of Dadullah in exchange for the envoy.

Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said there was no mention of any demands in the four-and-a-half minute tape he had seen and he was not aware of any demands. "Yes, it is him, but… we're not in a position to verify if he's in the custody of the Taliban," Sadiq said.
As opposed to collaborating ...
A Pakistani security official said at the time the envoy was to have changed cars at the border but did not show up. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had said he was sure the envoy had been snatched.

The historic Khyber Pass is the main road link to landlocked Afghanistan in northwestern Pakistan and a major supply route for foreign forces in Afghanistan.
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India-Pakistan
Police search for Pakistan envoy
2008-02-13
Pakistani authorities were searching tonight for their country's Ambassador to Afghanistan and two nuclear officials who appear to have been kidnapped separately in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan. Police were also interrogating Mullah Mansour Dadullah, a top Taleban commander who was captured in the northwest yesterday, amid reports that Islamist militants had offered to swap him for the Ambassador.

The envoy is one of the most senior government officials to have been kidnapped in Pakistan's tribal areas. The apparent abductions highlight the security risks in nuclear-armed Pakistan as it prepares for parliamentary elections on Monday that are being seen as a test of President Pervez Musharraf's popularity and commitment to democracy.

Pakistan's Army is locked in a conflict with Taleban and al-Qaeda militants based in northwestern Pakistan whom President Musharraf blames for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December. Tariq Azizuddin, the Pakistani Ambassador to Kabul, was driving there with his driver and a bodyguard yesterday when they disappeared in Pakistan's lawless Khyber tribal district, local officials said.

Pakistan's Embassy in Kabul said that it last had contact with Mr Azizuddin yesterday morning as he was travelling into Khyber district - long a hotbed of bandits and smugglers - from the northwestern city of Peshawar. “Our law enforcement and other agencies in Khyber are carrying out a search operation,” said Javed Iqbal Cheema, the Interior Ministry spokesman. “We hope we should be able to trace and recover him soon.”

Police also confirmed that two technicians from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had been abducted at about the same time by masked men near the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier Province. The technicians were on their way to do a routine geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped along with their driver and five local people, who have now been released, local police said.

Pakistani officials declined to say if Mr Azizuddin had been kidnapped, but Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, said that he was sure that the envoy had been abducted. “May God make it happen that our brother and neighbouring country, Pakistan, is able to rescue him from the abductors, the terrorists,” Mr Karzai said during a conference on education in Kabul. “I hope he is safe and I hope he will be released soon.”

It was not immediately clear, however, whether the alleged abductors were Islamist militants or members of a criminal gang simply out to make money.
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India-Pakistan
Talibs sold out Dadullah over MI6 contacts
2008-02-12
Mansoor Dadullah was clinging to life after Pakistani commandos attacked his hideout in a remote tribal area close to the Afghan border. [H]e was allegedly sacked by the extremists' spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, for negotiating with MI6. He was also blamed for losing Musa Qala, a Taleban stronghold in Helmand, which fell to British and Afghan troops last year.
Definitely on the poop list.
Pakistani officials admitted they received an intelligence tip-off ahead of the raid.
[Ring! Ring!]
"Hello?... Yeah... Hang on... Chief! Dis guy sez he wantsa talk to youse!"
"Who is it?"
"Sez his name's Mahmoud da Weasel!"
"I'll take it in my office!"
The local police chief, Saud Gohar, said: "We had reports of his presence from intelligence sources. He was hiding in a house in the village."
"Well, really, we can't do nuttin', cuz we ain't got precise information on his location..."
"606 Back Alley of the Veiled Pleasure Boy, Apartment C!"
It is thought Mansoor may have been double-crossed as part of a deal between the hardline "neo" Taleban in Pakistan, and local security forces.
Or thrown to the dogs by Mullah Omar, who had somebody a little more competent and a little less greedy in mind."
It comes less than a fortnight after a senior al-Qaeda commander, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed by an American rocket attack in Pakistan's northern Waziristan province. Terrorism analysts believe Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, may have passed the United States details of Libi's whereabouts to relieve US pressure on Islamabad over insurgent activity.
Really? They'd do something underhanded like that?
Pakistan denies international claims its border is a safe haven for religious extremists, who use it to launch attacks against Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
But the operation against Mansoor came a day after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned that sanctuaries in the tribal areas pose a direct threat to Islamabad.
"They do? Chaudry, shouldn't we do something?"
"I'd think so, Perv. Why don't we shoot Mansour Dadullah?"
"Good idea!"
A spokesman for Pakistan's army claimed Mansoor was seized as he sneaked across the border from Afghanistan.
"Yeah. We don't let riff-raff like that in our country!"
Major- General Athar Abbas said Mansoor refused to stop at a checkpoint.
[BANG!] "Halt or we'll [BANG! BANG!] shoot!"
He said: "Security personnel returned fire. As a result, all of them were ventilated sustained injuries and all of them were captured. Dadullah (Mansoor] was arrested alive, but he is critically wounded."
"He's not quite dead, Jim!"
Mansoor said in a phone interview in January that he remained a Taleban commander and had asked Mullah Omar, to dispel "rumours" of his dismissal. He also claimed that he had met with al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, a few months ago. He said Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters in Helmand were fighting alongside each other and sharing tactics.
That accounts for the dead Paks and Arabs and Uzbeks, doesn't it?
The arrests coincided with a rare announcement from Mullah Omar. In a statement, published in the Afghan Islamic Press, he said: "We want legitimate relations with countries of the world and we are not a threat to anyone. If foreign troops leave Afghanistan, that will be a victory for the people of Afghanistan."
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India-Pakistan
Top Taliban commander (Mulla Mansour Dadullah) captured in S.W. Pakistan
2008-02-11
Pakistani security forces arrested a top Taliban commander near the Afghan border on Monday, the Pakistani government confirmed. Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said Mulla Mansour Dadullah and five others were arrested when security officials raided a house in Zhob district in Baluchistan, about 420 kilometers southwest of Islamabad.

Dadullah took control of Taliban forces in turbulent Helmand province in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed by British forces in May last year.

Cheema confirmed that Dadullah was injured in the operation and has been hospitalized. Earlier reports had said that Dadullah had died while being flown to a hospital.
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Afghanistan
Taliban leader vows Dreaded Afghan Winter™ war
2007-11-01
A Taliban leader vowed in a video posted on the Internet on Wednesday that the insurgents would expand their fighting to the north of Afghanistan during the country's hard winter.

"God willing, ... the war will continue in the winter with the same intensity as now," Mullah Mansour Dadullah said on the video posted on an Islamist Web site. "Our operations are blazing across the southern provinces, and we shall reach the northern provinces in the same manner," said Mullah Mansour in Pashto on the video, which carried Arabic subtitles.
"We will fight and die in the winter as well as we have in the summer. In fact we will die even better in the winter!" he added.
Mullah Mansour took over as commander of Taliban forces in the southern province of Helmand in May from his brother, Mullah Dadullah, who was killed in a raid by British forces. Mainly British and U.S. forces have been engaged in almost daily battles with Taliban rebels in Helmand. Mullah Mansour said the Taliban also had contact with insurgents in Iraq. "We exchange information on planning attacks against the enemy, as well as on weapons that are developed on the battlefronts," the Taliban leader told an off-camera interviewer as he sat in what appeared to be a tent.

The video was produced by al Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab, which said it was made during a visit to the Taliban commander by al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid. The recording carried the date of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ended in around mid-October.

Mansour denied the Taliban received aid from Iran. "This is a claim that the Americans make to justify their defeat to the world," he said.

Taliban have launched a spate of suicide bombings, after claims by Afghan, NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces to have subdued insurgents in an aggressive spring campaign against Taliban strongholds in the south and east.
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India-Pakistan
'Osama alive and well'
2007-08-23
A top Taliban commander has said Al Qaeda mastermind Osama Bin Laden is alive and well, according to US-based analysts monitoring extremist publications. “All praise be to Allah, he is extremely healthy and active,” the commander Mansour Dadullah said in a video interview released Tuesday by analyst IntelCenter.
"I'm okay, too! They missed me! That was another Mullah Deadullah they got!"
Dadullah said Bin Laden, the man blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, had contacted him. “I received a message from him in which he advised me to follow Mullah Dadullah and continue the same activities so that the mujahedeen may not weaken,” he said, according to the transcript.

The video is dated June 15, 2007, IntelCenter added. Bin Laden, who has a $50 million US bounty on his head, has appeared in a series of video and audio clips since the 9/11 attacks but has not been heard from since May 2006, when the CIA authenticated a voice recording on the Internet as his. In the recording, which was accompanied by an online text, the terror network chief said Zacarias Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin and the only man convicted in the 9/11 attacks, had nothing to do with the operation.
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Afghanistan
Taliban leader vows more attacks against West
2007-07-15
A Taliban commander warned Western nations in an interview broadcast on US television on Friday that they could expect more attacks. Mansour Dadullah, in the interview shown on ABC News, said the July 2005 suicide attacks on London’s transport system, in which 52 people had died, were “not enough” and that bigger attacks were coming. “You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks,” Dadullah told a Pakistani journalist in an interview ABC said was conducted four days earlier.

The commander of the Islamic group, which was ousted from power in Afghanistan by US troops after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, talks about his ability to operate inside neighbouring Pakistan. “We have many friends,” he said. “It is very easy for us to go in and out of the tribal areas (at the Pak-Afghan border). It is no problem.”

Last month, ABC broadcast a video showing Dadullah presiding over a “graduation ceremony” of fighters trained by Al Qaeda and the Taliban somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal border region on June 9. In that video, Dadullah had threatened members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military alliance deployed in Afghanistan. “These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places,” Dadullah said on the video. “Why shouldn’t we go after them?”
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Afghanistan
Bin Laden alive, wrote to me, Taliban leader says
2007-06-05
A brother of a slain Taliban leader said al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was alive and well and that he had received a letter of condolence from him after his brother was killed in May.
"Dear Haji Mansur,
Hi! How are you?"
"He is alive, active and well," Haji Mansour Dadullah, a Taliban militant leader, said of bin Laden.
"I am fine. So are the kids. How're your little ones doing?"
"He sent me a letter of condolence after the martyrdom of my brother Mullah Dadullah," he told Al Jazeera television. It was not clear when the interview was taken.
"Sorry to hear about your brother getting shot to shreds. That musta really hurt, briefly."
Mullah Dadullah was killed by U.S.-led forces. His death was seen as the most serious blow to the Taliban insurgency since the militants' removal from power in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring bin Laden and Qaeda militants. Bin Laden "told me to follow in the steps of my brother and urged Muslims to follow the steps of Mullah Dadullah because he was a mujahid", said Dadullah, who was described by Jazeera as a Taliban military leader.
"I really hope you follow in your brother's footsteps and get shot to shreds, too. All Muslims should, really."
Mullah Dadullah was the main architect behind rising attacks, including suicide raids, against Afghan and Western troops in southern Afghanistan, as well as kidnappings of foreigners and locals and a series of beheadings. Mullah Dadullah has been replaced by his relatively unknown brother, Mullah Bakht Mohammad.
"Has Mullah Bakht found his ass yet? He should use both hands. That always works better for me."
Dadullah told Jazeera that Saudi-born bin Laden was avoiding media exposure for safety. "These are just military tactics. He prefers not to appear because if he appeared in the media or met people he might face danger," he said.
"I am enjoying my stay here at Fazlur Rehman's guest house. I'll probably stay here for quite a while longer, since I'm too important to The Movement® to get shot to shreds."
"I urged him not to meet anyone and to stay in hiding and continue to give directives ... so that al Qaeda stays active in Afghanistan and the world," he said in an interview conducted in an open field in Afghanistan.
"Yours truly,
Binny"
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