Those who read Mullah Akhtar Mansoor as a man with peace on his mind when he acceded to the still disputed apex position vacated by Mullah Omar, are shown to have been comprehensively wrong. Mullah Mansoor has now completely ruled out any peace talks as long as there are foreign troops in Afghanistan. This is a serious blow, as President Ghani has signed (which his predecessor refused to do) a number of security pacts with the US and Nato. These allow for 12,000 foreign troops to remain in the country though not in combat roles. Divisions within the Taliban have threatened to derail fledgling peace talks with the Afghan government and allow the Islamic State group to expand its foothold in the region. While the Eid messages of the previous Taliban chief Mullah Omar — now believed to have been authored over the past couple of years by Mullah Mansour himself — routinely emphasised the need for all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan, the new leader’s message has called for the scrapping of the bilateral security arrangement between the US and Afghan governments that has allowed a residual American military presence to remain in Afghanistan. But it is more than the seeming addition of a new precondition: the tone and tenor of the message suggest the emphasis is still on consolidating his leadership rather than continuing with his/Mullah Omar’s gradual opening up to the possibility of a negotiated settlement. While the goings-on inside the Afghan Taliban leadership are notoriously opaque and difficult to predict, Mullah Mansour’s switch from tentative peacemaker to placating the most hardline elements in the Afghan Taliban suggests he is yet to fully tamp down dissent against his rule.The fact that a competing Eid message was issued by some Afghan Taliban leaders is indicative of lingering internal legitimacy issues.
Intriguingly, the new Taliban leader also made a mention of “foreign pressure” to resume talks being counterproductive and suggested it would create more problems than it would solve. The comment was likely aimed at Pakistan.
Again, however, it is difficult to know what prompted it: is he trying to appease the hawks among the Taliban or did the process of his installation as the next Taliban emir lead to some genuine friction with the Pakistani state? The assumption thus far has been that the security establishment preferred the Afghan Taliban remaining united under Mullah Mansour and had worked with him earlier to make the Murree talks happen.Could it be, though, that the extent of Pakistan’s influence over him has been exaggerated, just as it was argued that Pakistan controlled the Afghan Taliban and could dictate policy to them? Whatever the truth about the relationship between Mullah Mansour and the Pakistani state, it is relatively clear that the latter has its work cut out for it.
pk.shafaqna.com
