NAYPYITAW/KABUL/ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK, May 22: Afghan government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah confirmed on Sunday that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a United States (US) drone strike in Pakistan a day earlier.
“Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour was killed in a drone strike in Quetta, Pakistan, at 04:30 pm yesterday. His car was attacked in Dahl Bandin,” Abdullah said in a tweet, referring to a district in Balochistan just over the border with Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s main intelligence service, the National Directorate for Security (NDS) also confirmed Mansour’s death. “Mansour was being closely monitored for a while… until he was targeted along with other fighters aboard a vehicle,” the NDS said.
Menawhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour posed a “continuing imminent threat” to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and to Afghans, and was a threat to peace.
U.S. officials in Washington said on Saturday U.S. missile-firing drones had attacked Mansour and probably killed him in a strike in southwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border, authorized by U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Yesterday, the United States conducted a precision air strike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Mansour posed a continuing, imminent threat” to U.S. personnel and Afghans, Kerry told a news conference in the Myanmar capital.
“This action sends a clear message to the world that we will continue
to stand with our Afghan partners as they work to build a more stable, united, secure and prosperous Afghanistan.”
Kerry said the leaders of both Pakistan and Afghanistan were notified of the air strike but he declined to elaborate on the timing of the notifications, which he said included a telephone call from him to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
“Peace is what we want. Mansour was a threat to that effort and to bringing an end to the violence and suffering people of Afghanistan have endured for so many years now. He was also directly opposed to the peace negotiation and to the reconciliation process,” Kerry said. -AFP/Reuters
