pakistani342
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Excellent article on New York Times, here.
Discusses how the Afghan intelligence is trying to use Mullah Omar's reclusive nature to suggest that he is dead to weaken the Taliban morale. Also assertions that he is in Karachi.
Also the evil ISI seems to be behind a re-org of sorts in the Taliban (I guess ISI is the new bogeyman, move over KGB, FSB)
...
“I have not seen Mullah Omar in a very long time,” Maulvi Najibullah, a senior Taliban military commander, said in a telephone interview from Peshawar, in northern Pakistan.
...
So, is the influence of the elusive mullah waning?
Senior insurgents who have raised objections to Mullah Omar’s reclusiveness have been marginalized — or worse, insurgents and officials said. One Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Raqib Takhari, is believed to have been killed in February after angrily telling compatriots that he would start making his own decisions if he was not granted an audience with Mullah Omar, Afghan and European officials said.
...
Eager to exploit any potential Taliban weakness, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, suggested at a news conference in October that Mullah Omar might be dead.
In a separate interview, Rahmatullah Nabil, the acting Afghan intelligence chief, said he could not be sure “whether Omar is alive or dead. That’s difficult to say at this stage.”
But the Taliban quickly dismissed any talk of their leader’s being dead. And other Afghan officials, along with some European and American counterparts, said the suggestions that Mullah Omar had died were a propaganda ploy intended to weaken Taliban morale, not a reflection of the true thinking within the Afghan government.
“There’s a consensus among all three branches of the Afghan security forces that Mullah Omar is alive,” said one European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private intelligence briefings. “Not only do they think he’s alive, they say they have a good understanding of where exactly he is in Karachi,” the Pakistani metropolis where some say Mullah Omar is hiding.
Discusses how the Afghan intelligence is trying to use Mullah Omar's reclusive nature to suggest that he is dead to weaken the Taliban morale. Also assertions that he is in Karachi.
Also the evil ISI seems to be behind a re-org of sorts in the Taliban (I guess ISI is the new bogeyman, move over KGB, FSB)
...
“I have not seen Mullah Omar in a very long time,” Maulvi Najibullah, a senior Taliban military commander, said in a telephone interview from Peshawar, in northern Pakistan.
...
So, is the influence of the elusive mullah waning?
Senior insurgents who have raised objections to Mullah Omar’s reclusiveness have been marginalized — or worse, insurgents and officials said. One Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Raqib Takhari, is believed to have been killed in February after angrily telling compatriots that he would start making his own decisions if he was not granted an audience with Mullah Omar, Afghan and European officials said.
...
Eager to exploit any potential Taliban weakness, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, suggested at a news conference in October that Mullah Omar might be dead.
In a separate interview, Rahmatullah Nabil, the acting Afghan intelligence chief, said he could not be sure “whether Omar is alive or dead. That’s difficult to say at this stage.”
But the Taliban quickly dismissed any talk of their leader’s being dead. And other Afghan officials, along with some European and American counterparts, said the suggestions that Mullah Omar had died were a propaganda ploy intended to weaken Taliban morale, not a reflection of the true thinking within the Afghan government.
“There’s a consensus among all three branches of the Afghan security forces that Mullah Omar is alive,” said one European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private intelligence briefings. “Not only do they think he’s alive, they say they have a good understanding of where exactly he is in Karachi,” the Pakistani metropolis where some say Mullah Omar is hiding.
