WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States conducted a drone strike on Saturday against the leader of Afghan Taliban, likely killing him on the Pakistan side of the remote border region with Afghanistan in a mission authorized by U.S. President Barack Obama, officials said.
The death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour, should it be
confirmed, could further fracture the Taliban - an outcome that experts
cautioned might make the insurgents even less likely to participate in
long-stalled peace efforts.
The mission, which included multiple drones, demonstrated
a clear willingness by Obama to go after the Afghan Taliban leadership in
Pakistan now that the insurgents control or contest more territory in
Afghanistan than at any time since being ousted by a U.S.-led intervention in
2001.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook confirmed an air strike
targeting Mansour in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region but declined to
speculate on his fate, although multiple U.S. officials, speaking on condition
of anonymity, told Reuters he likely was killed.
"We are still assessing the results of the strike and
will provide more information as it becomes available," Cook said.
A Taliban commander close to Mansour, speaking to Reuters
on condition of anonymity, denied Mansour was dead.
"We heard about these baseless reports but this not
first time," the commander said. "Just wanted to share with you my
own information that Mullah Mansour has not been killed."
In December, Mansour was reportedly wounded and possibly
killed in a shootout at the house of another Taliban leader near Quetta in
Pakistan.
Bruce Riedel, an Afghanistan expert at the Brookings
Institution think-tank, described the U.S. operation in Pakistan as an
unprecedented move but cautioned about possible fallout with Pakistan, where
Taliban leadership has long been accused of having safe haven.
A State Department official said both Pakistan and
Afghanistan were notified of the strike but did not disclose whether that
notification was prior to it being carried out.
"The opportunity to conduct this operation to
eliminate the threat that Mansour posed was a distinctive one and we acted on
it," the official said.
TROUBLED PEACE TALKS
The U.S. drones targeted Mansour and another combatant as
the men rode in a vehicle in a remote area southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal,
another U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. special operations forces operated the drones in a
mission authorized by Obama that took place at about 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT), the
official said. That would have placed it at Saturday at 3 p.m. in Pakistan.
Cook branded Mansour "an obstacle to peace and
reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban" and
said he was involved in planning attacks that threatened U.S., Afghan and
allied forces.
Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and
Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said the strike was unlikely to
bring the Taliban to the negotiating table any time soon.
"The Taliban won't simply meekly agree to talks and
especially as this strike could worsen the fragmentation within the
organization," he said.
Kugelman said the most important target for the United
States remained the top leadership of the Haqqani network, which is allied with
the Taliban.
Mansour had failed to win over rival factions within the
Taliban after formally assuming the helm last year after the Taliban admitted
the group's founding leader, Mullah Omar, had been dead for more than two
years.
It was unclear who Mansour's successor might be.
"If Mansour is dead it will provoke a crisis inside
the Taliban," Riedel said.
U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican head of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, said he hoped the strike would herald a change
in the Obama administration's policy against more broadly targeting the
Taliban.
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan is currently
reviewing U.S. strategy, including whether broader powers are needed to target
insurgents and whether to proceed with plans to reduce the number of U.S.
forces.
"Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same
reason they deployed there in 2001 - to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a
safe haven for global terrorists," McCain said.
"The Taliban remains allied with these terrorists,
including al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, and it is the one force most able
and willing to turn Afghanistan into a terrorist safe haven once again."
(Additional
reporting by James Mackenzie in Afghanistan and Drazen Jorgic in Pakistan;
Editing by Bill Trott and David Gregorio)
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
