KABUL, Afghanistan — Two days after acknowledging that its supreme commander, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was dead, the Taliban released an audio recording said to be from the group’s new leader.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two days after acknowledging that its supreme commander, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was dead, the Taliban released an audio recording said to be from the group’s new leader.
In it, the new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, declared that “the jihad will continue until there is an Islamic system” in Afghanistan, and he called on the Taliban to remain unified just as they had when Omar was at the helm.
He called on the insurgents to pray for “the strength and courage to follow the path of Mullah Omar,” founding leader of the Taliban who had not been seen in public since late 2001, when his government in Afghanistan fell.
Omar’s fate had been unknown until last week, when the Afghan government announced that he had died more than two years ago in a Pakistani hospital. A day later, the Taliban confirmed that Omar had died.
Mansour seemed to dismiss the prospect of peace talks as enemy propaganda, despite the fact that he was said to have approved a historic face-to-face meeting in early July between delegations from the Taliban and the Afghan government. That meeting, arranged by Pakistan, was seen as a potential first step toward negotiations between the two sides. After Omar’s death was announced, Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the next round of talks, scheduled for Friday, had been postponed at the Taliban’s request.
But in the recording, which was released Saturday, Mansour said claims of any “peace process” or negotiations were merely “the words of the enemies.”
Still, the Afghan government and Western diplomats are likely to find some cause for hope in what Mansour said, and did not say. His address did not explicitly rule out future contact for the government. And he defined the goal of the insurgency as “an Islamic system” in Kabul, rather than explicitly speaking in terms of the Taliban reconquering Afghanistan.
Mansour repeatedly exhorted his audience to be on guard against factionalism and enemy propaganda that might breed distrust.
“The enemies have tried a lot, with the help of money and media and many other ways, to weaken the morale for jihad and destroy our unity,” he said.