Joseph Goldstein and Taimoor Shah, New York Times: Death of Mullah Omar Exposes Divisions Within Taliban
KABUL, Afghanistan — With word of Mullah Muhammad Omar’s death now getting out, most likely two years after the event, the world is catching up with a Taliban leadership crisis already in progress.
The questions the Taliban are wrestling with include not just who stands to succeed Mullah Omar as leader, but whether anyone has enough support to keep the insurgency from splintering irrevocably, especially over the issue of peace talks, according to Afghan and Western officials.
For the moment, the Taliban’s deputy leader over the past five years, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, is the de facto leader of the group’s governing body in exile, the Quetta Shura. He has had years to influence who rose among the Taliban’s ranks, has the tacit acceptance of the group’s Pakistani military monitors, and he has been the leader in a year when the Taliban have made their biggest military gains on the Afghan battlefield.
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