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U.S. says killed Taliban leader was planning attacks on Americans

24 May 2016 05:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. U.S. President Barack Obama approved the drone strike that killed Mullah Akhtar Mansour because the Taliban leader was overseeing plans for new attacks on American targets in Kabul, the Afghan capital, U.S. officials said on Monday, APA reports quoting Reuters.

While the Taliban have yet to confirm the death of their leader Saturday in a remote area in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, senior members of the insurgency's leadership council met to begin choosing Mansour's successor.

Two senior members of the movement also said Pakistani authorities had delivered Mansour's badly burned remains for burial in the western city of Quetta. Pakistani officials, however, denied handing over a body.

U.S. forces targeted Mansour because he was plotting attacks that posed "specific imminent threats" to U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, later specified that the Taliban were planning new attacks against "our interests and our people in Kabul." He did not elaborate.

But the administration hopes Mansour's death will have a long-term impact by pushing the Taliban to end its refusal to engage in peace negotiations with Kabul and "choose the path to reconciliation," the official said.

He expressed hope that the death of Mansour will convince Pakistan to live up to its "rhetoric" and deny safe haven to the Taliban. American intelligence and military officials have long said the Pakistani military supports elements of the insurgency.

But the Taliban's direction is hard to predict and hinges largely on what happens in the leadership contest and in fighting over the summer season.

Mansour's death cleared "an obstacle to reconciliation," said one U.S. intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. "But it's not clear if it clears the path for reconciliation."

A second U.S. intelligence official was more pessimistic.

"It’s at least equally likely that killing Mansour will destroy any chance to get the Taliban into negotiations with the (Afghan) government, not that there ever was much of one," said the second official, who specializes in South Asia and also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"His successor could be even more loathe to negotiate."

Obama confirmed Mansour's death while on a three-day visit to Vietnam, calling it "an important milestone."

"The Taliban should seize the opportunity to pursue the only real path for ending this long conflict - joining the Afghan government in a reconciliation process that leads to lasting peace and stability," Obama said.

He stressed that the operation against Mansour was not a shift in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan or a return to active engagement in fighting, following the end of the international coalition's main combat mission in 2014.

The U.S. now has 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, and a decision is expected later this year on whether to stick with a timetable that would see their numbers cut to 5,500 by the start of 2017.

Pentagon spokesman Davis said the drone strike that killed Mansour was carried out under U.S. rules of engagement that permit the military to conduct defensive strikes. He said it was the first time to his knowledge that U.S. forces had attacked inside Pakistan under that rule. Previous strikes there were done under U.S. rules on counterterrorism.