ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The US President Barack Obama has confirmed the death of Taliban Leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Saturday night.
However, the Afghan Taliban leadership is yet to confirm the death of its Chief in US drone strike.
“We have removed the leader of an organization that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and Coalition forces, to wage war against the Afghan people, and align itself with extremist groups like al Qa’ida,” Obama said in a statement on Monday according to a foreign news agency.
Obama said that Mansour had rejected efforts “to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that has taken the lives of countless innocent Afghan men, women and children.”
The US president called on the Taliban’s remaining leadership to engage in peace talks as the “only real path” to ending the attritional conflict.
It is second highest level confirmation from the United States about the killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour as earlier the US Secretary of State John Kerry also disclosed the death of Taliban Chief, and also said that Mansour had posed an “imminent threat” to the Afghan and US people.
But Pakistan didn’t immediately confirm the killing of Mansour though admitted that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif was informed by the US after the strike had been conducted near the Pak-Afghan border.
Talking to media after reaching London for medical check-up, Nawaz Sharif said that killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour was being verified. He also said that Pakistan had always raised its protest and it was violation of our sovereignty.
In a statement on Sunday, the Foreign Office in Islamabad also confirmed that the information about the drone strike and likely death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour had been shared with Pakistan but it reiterated Pakistan’s demand of ending the drone strike as it was a violation of its sovereignty.
“Pakistan wishes to once again state that the drone attack was a violation of its sovereignty, an issue which has been raised with the United States in the past as well,” the Foreign Office said.
The Foreign Office said that two persons were killed when the US drone targeted a vehicle, as per information gathered so far. It said that the vehicle was found destroyed at Kochaki along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
But the Foreign Office didn’t confirm that Mullah Akhtar Mansour was among the dead.
Likewise, the Taliban declined to verify the claim of the US about Mansour’s death and said that in next couple of days, an audio message will be released to prove that Mullah Akhtar Mansour was still alive.
“The attack did occur and some important military persons were there, but Mansour was not among them,” a Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Samad Sani was quoted as saying by media reports.
“Now we deny it officially and in the next three days we will release Mansour’s audio message.”
