Taliban Leadership Has Gathered in Pakistani City of Quetta to Pick a New Leader

MUJIB MASHAL and TAIMOOR SHAH

May 25, 2016

Shaken, Taliban Begin Effort to Replace Dead Leader, Mullah Mansour

KABUL, Afghanistan — For the second time in less than a year, senior Taliban leaders have convened in the Pakistani city of Quetta to deliberate how to replace a dead supreme leader.

Unlike last summer’s gatherings, where some leaders arrived in convoys of hundreds of vehicles to choose Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour as the successor to their founding leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, Taliban figures described the tone of the meetings over the past three days as decidedly low-key, and even shocked.

They described how the American drone strike that was said to have killed Mullah Mansour in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province on Saturday also destroyed the perception that the protection they had received for years in their Pakistani havens could be permanent. Some angrily accused Pakistani intelligence agents of selling out Mullah Mansour’s location to the Americans.

Taliban spokesmen and commanders were happy to jump on the phone last summer, first to reject news of Mullah Omar’s death and then to project an image of unity behind Mullah Mansour. This time, there has been mostly silence. Several commanders and participants who could still be reached said the days of heedless cellphone communication in Baluchistan were gone — another casualty of the American drone strike that some officials said was aided by Mullah Mansour’s repeated use of a small collection of phones.

Mullah Mansour presided over major battlefield victories, but his leadership was marked by intensifying divisions within the Taliban, and at times he put rebellions down violently. In recent days, commanders who were briefed on the Quetta meetings said that Mullah Mansour’s death was widely being seen as an opportunity to elect a new leader with a broader consensus to reunite the insurgency.

But the options being discussed with no clear successor suggest it will be a turbulent process that will involve the crucial question of who controls the vast finance networks developed by Mullah Mansour over several years, including extensive opium profits.

“If it turns out true that he is dead, we will be sad,” said Qari Fasihuddin, the Taliban shadow governor of Badakhshan Province, emphasizing that Mullah Mansour’s death had still not been confirmed by the Taliban. “But it is true that Mullah Mansour did not reach leadership with consensus, and this could be a moment for the leadership to solve those problems.”

Others were alarmed by a new sense of vulnerability for the Taliban leadership.

“Since we heard the incident with Mullah Mansour, it is really affecting our thoughts and we are feeling frustrated,” said Mullah Shafiullah, a Taliban commander from the Musa Qala district in Helmand Province. “The Taliban were almost repaired from the serious blow of losing our supreme leader Mullah Omar, and now another big loss. It is becoming risky, and we need to make a stand to protect our leaders.”

Mullah Abdul Sattar Sirat, a commander in Shahid-Hasas district of Oruzgan Province, was even more pessimistic: “It’s hard to find good leaders who will manage to unite the Taliban.”

The commanders said the core leadership of the Taliban has held several rounds of inconclusive discussions in Quetta since Sunday, including at the home of Mullah Haibatullah, a deputy to Mullah Mansour who was described as having emerged as a guiding voice in the succession.

Unlike Mullah Mansour’s quick confirmation, which led many Taliban leaders to see it as rigged and even a coup, commanders said they expect this process to be lengthy, with wider consultations.

Several field commanders reached by phone said they had received calls from the leadership in Pakistan asking about their preferred candidates. One commander in northern Afghanistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss detailed planning, said three representatives from their front had been called to Pakistan for a gathering scheduled for the end of May.

Familiar names were among the figures being discussed for the leadership, including the former Taliban military chief Mullah Qayum Zakir; the founding leader’s son, Mullah Muhammad Yaqoub; and the movement’s current deputy and operational leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani. Another figure described as an outside possibility was Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradur, formerly an influential deputy to Mullah Omar who had a falling out with Pakistani intelligence operatives and is said to remain under house arrest.

Commanders said that Mullah Yaqoub was widely seen as a possible unifying candidate, with his bloodline outweighing his relative lack of experience. A recent graduate of religious studies who is believed to be in his mid- or late 20s, Mullah Yaqoub at first revolted against Mullah Mansour’s claim to the leadership last summer. He only recently pledged loyalty, after being named a military commander with authority in 15 Afghan provinces.

Mr. Haqqani has been closely identified with this year’s aggressive Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, and has a history of effective operations planning and fund-raising as leader of the Haqqani militant network. But he was only integrated into the Taliban’s core leadership last year, and he may struggle to find supporters among a mostly southern-Afghan band of commanders. He is also seen as close to Pakistan’s military intelligence apparatus, and that may now count against him.

“Sirajuddin’s expertise in complex military operations, coupled with the finance networks Mansour developed and the support from Pakistan, would make a dangerous mix,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, the former Afghan intelligence chief. “But he will struggle to gain the support of the southern Taliban.”

Mullah Zakir and Mullah Baradur were described as having longer shots at the leadership. Mullah Zakir’s network of commanders in the Taliban was undermined — and in some cases eliminated — by Mullah Mansour, who saw him as a direct rival to his ascent, Afghan officials say.

Mullah Baradur, who continues to enjoy influence among the Taliban because he was a close lieutenant of Mullah Omar, would most likely be hampered by Pakistani military officials who have kept him under house arrest. Some saw the discussion of his rise mostly as another way to lash out at Pakistan.

Whoever emerges as the leader will have to win over Mullah Mansour’s money men, who are largely from his Ishaqzai tribe. They are led by Mullah Gul Agha Ishaqzai, who is said to be in charge of gathering taxes for the Taliban, including the income from the lucrative narcotics trade.

When Mullah Mansour faced a revolt in his first days as leader, he arranged a meeting with about 40 narcotics smugglers outside Quetta, according to Afghan intelligence reports. Present in the meeting, and one of its supposed organizers, was Mullah Gul Agha. Mullah Mansour was reported to have raised more than $20 million during that meeting, as well as an allotment of pickup trucks that he then dished out to placate angry Taliban commanders.

The Ishaqzai contingent in the Taliban is not happy with the two emerging leading candidates — Mullah Yaqoub and Mr. Haqqani — and would instead want to see Mullah Gul Agha in the top job, said Mullah Sallam Haqqani, a Taliban commander in Quetta. But Mullah Haqqani said he saw Gul Agha’s chances as slim.

As discussions continued, the Taliban leadership also faced another problem: what to do with Mullah Mansour’s body, described in a Pakistani hospital post-mortem as badly charred and missing half his head.

Even the location of the body was in question. Taliban commanders and hospital sources said the corpse was received by a nephew of Mullah Mansour soon after it arrived at the civil hospital in Quetta. But Pakistan’s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said at a news conference Tuesday that the Pakistani authorities wanted to conduct DNA tests for verification.