Taliban Leader Mullah Mansour Dead??

[Devil Soul]

NEWS of Mullah Manaour being killed in a drone strike yesterday.. The news is not confirmed as yet..

 

[shah1398]

Reported place of strike?

NEWS of Mullah Manaour being killed in a drone strike yesterday.. The news is not confirmed as yet..

 

[Devil Soul]

Reported place of strike?

Zabul, near Pak Afghan border

 

[Sher Malang]

U.S. air strike targets Afghan Taliban leader Mansour: Pentagon


The U.S. military carried out an air strike on Saturday targeting Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, the Pentagon said.

"We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Bill Trott)

 

[Tari]

Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was targeted by a U.S. airstrike Saturday, the Pentagon announced. U.S. intelligence officials were in the process of attempting to confirm whether he had been killed, a senior defense official told NBC News.

Mansoor became leader last July, when it was revealed that reclusive long-time head, Mullah Omar, had died two years prior. Mansoor had been his deputy.

That abrupt shift in leadership raised hopes that a weakened Taliban would be willing to make concessions in Afghan peace talks. Instead, Mansoor appointed new top deputies and won a string of battlefield victories, the most notable of which was Kunduz in northern Afghanistan last September — one of the most stunning setbacks since U.S.-backed forces invaded in 2001.


Mullah Akhtar Mansoor appears in a photo in an Afghan newspaper. AP
The airstrike against Mansoor, the Taliban's former aviation minister, was carried out in a remote area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

Mansoor "has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict," the statement said.

Speculation had mounted for years that his predecessor, the one-eyed Mullah, had died. But it wasn't until July 29, 2012, that a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security confirmed that he had.

"According to our intelligence, Mullah Omar has died in a hospital in Pakistan a couple years ago," Abdul Hassib Sediqi told NBC News. The government said he died of hepatitis B but his death was hidden for the sake of keeping the group together, an intelligence source said.

The militancy only seemed to unify itself even more after Mansoor took over, with relatives of Omar supporting him.

"The esteemed family of the founder of the Islamic Emirate ... Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahid pledged their allegiance to the new Islamic Emirate leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor at a grand gathering on Tuesday," the Taliban said at the time in a statement sent to journalists.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/t...tar-mansoor-targeted-u-s-drone-strike-n578081

 

[Dr Gupta]

I knew it was high level target that drone strike came out the blue like a lighting bolt

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36351990

Afghan Taliban leader Mansour 'likely killed' in US air strike

 

[saiyan0321]

Very high chance that he is killed in that drone strike. This will place the offensive Taliban on the defensive. ANSF should capitalize on this and move forward to retake districts lost to the Taliban especially in Helmand. Let's see. We should know if it hit soon enough.

This will also increase the rifts in Taliban which should again give ANSF great advantage. Let's hope they capitalize

 

[shah1398]

Zabul, near Pak Afghan border

But he was supposedly in Quetta recruiting new deputies and making war plans... This was the stance by our brothers from Afghanistan.
@A-Team ur take plz.

And they better have taken him out as if he did survive then for sure they gonna strike back hard. But ofcourse it wud be us blamed for that fiasco as usual.

 

[F-22Raptor]

Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was likely killed in an airstrike in Pakistan on Saturday, a U.S. official told CNN.
The official said the strike occurred around 6 a.m. ET Saturday morning in a remote area of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.

Mansour was the target of the strike, and a second adult male combatant traveling with him in a vehicle also was likely killed, the official added.
U.S. officials are still assessing the results, the official said.
The strike was carried out by multiple unmanned aircraft operated by U.S. Special Operations forces. There was no collateral damage, the official added.

President Barack Obama authorized the strike.
The Pentagon confirmed the strike in a statement but didn't say whether Mansour was killed.

"Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and coalition partners," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in the statement. "Mansour has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict."

The Taliban revealed last summer that Mansour assumed command following the death of longtime leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who died in Pakistan in 2013.

Mansour formerly headed the leadership council of the Taliban and Islamic scholars, also known as the Quetta Shura, which is composed of longtime leaders who direct the Taliban's operations from Pakistan's Balochistan province, according to the Jamestown Foundation, a global research and analysis group.

According to the U.N. Security Council sanctions list, Mansour previously was the Taliban's minister of civil aviation and transportation and was considered "a prominent member of the Taliban leadership."

"He was repatriated to Afghanistan in September 2006 following detention in Pakistan. He is involved in drug trafficking and was active in the provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika in Afghanistan as of May 2007. He was also the Taliban 'Governor' of Kandahar as of May 2007," the U.N. document said.

He was an active recruiter in the Taliban's fight against the Afghan government, and before his appointment as Omar's deputy in 2010, he was chief of military affairs for a regional Taliban military council that oversees operations in Nimruz and Helmand provinces, the United Nations said.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/21/polit...strike-against-taliban-leader-mullah-mansour/

 

[Dr Gupta]

This bastard embraced Azhar the JEM leader after the hijacking and now he is dead

Same like Ilyas Kashmiri

 

[JanjaWeed]

Sounds like recent US pressure on Pak with regard to F-16 & multi million $ AID block is taking its toll.

This operation wouldn't have succeeded without PA's help!

Meanwhile this is just out of the blue...never expected this kinda brotherly gesture from Pakistan...
http://www.dawn.com/news/1259793/pa...ssing-facility-at-angoor-ada-to-afghan-forces

 

[jetray]

Sounds like recent US pressure on Pak with regard to F-16 & multi million $ AID block is taking its toll.

This operation wouldn't have succeeded without PA's help!

Meanwhile this is just out of the blue...never expected this kinda brotherly gesture from Pakistan...
http://www.dawn.com/news/1259793/pa...ssing-facility-at-angoor-ada-to-afghan-forces

True, mansour was an expendable asset but haqqanis are not. Should wait for confirmation.
By the way that is only a border crossing facility not territory exchange. It is simply a biscuit......

 

[Sabawoon_Noorzai]

Sounds like recent US pressure on Pak with regard to F-16 & multi million $ AID block is taking its toll.

This operation wouldn't have succeeded without PA's help!

Meanwhile this is just out of the blue...never expected this kinda brotherly gesture from Pakistan...
http://www.dawn.com/news/1259793/pa...ssing-facility-at-angoor-ada-to-afghan-forces

Exact same thought I had. Perhaps a high chance of Pakistani collusion and intelligence provision. However it will be kept as utmost secrete if the case because of any backlash. Pakistan is losing too much now and in the future to its policy of supporting Taliban which it could not sustain for too long. In any case the longer it chooses to do so the higher the price it should be willing to pay. This policy cannot serve as s leverage anymore at the strategic level of its relations with U.S and Afghanistan for now and India if it is right to analyse it in this triangle.

 

[A-Team]

But he was supposedly in Quetta recruiting new deputies and making war plans... This was the stance by our brothers from Afghanistan.
@A-Team ur take plz.

And they better have taken him out as if he did survive then for sure they gonna strike back hard. But ofcourse it wud be us blamed for that fiasco as usual.

He was taken out in Pakistan side of the border as I always explained, see below the report from NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/world/middleeast/us-drone-strike-targets-taliban-leader.html?_r=0

 

[jetray]

He was taken out in Pakistan side of the border as I always explained, see below the report from NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/world/middleeast/us-drone-strike-targets-taliban-leader.html?_r=0

As per LWJ strike was in Ahmad Wal,Balochistan.