Taliban peace talks derailed by Mullah Omar’s death

The belated revelation that Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar has been dead for more than two years delivered a serious blow to a nascent, Pakistani-brokered peace process aimed at ending the group’s long-running insurgency in Afghanistan.

Islamabad in recent months has increasingly exerted its influence to press Taliban leaders to come to the bargaining table, after years of tacit support for the Islamist movement’s fight against the Kabul government and its Western backers.

Early last month, Pakistan hosted a high-level meeting between Afghan officials and Taliban representatives. Negotiators had arrived in Islamabad on July 29 in preparation for a second round of talks, before news of Mullah Omar’s death prompted a postponement.

New Taliban leaders selected last week at a gathering in the western Pakistani city of Quetta are viewed as close to Islamabad, relative to others within the Taliban movement, but their selection was met with opposition in the Taliban’s top ranks and widened divisions in the group.

In an apparent effort to appear tough and unite the movement, the new Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was seen as a backer of peace talks, released a message on August 1 calling for “jihad until we establish an Islamic state”. He said any talks would have to comply with sharia.

Mullah Mansour, under pressure from Pakistan, went out on a limb this year by approving direct talks with Kabul in China and then last month’s meeting in Pakistan, according to diplomats and Taliban officials.

The Taliban’s top decision-making body, the Quetta Shura, declined to sign off on face-to-face talks when it met in Karachi earlier in the year, sources said, but the Taliban backed informal discussions that included Afghan officials in recent months in Doha, Dubai and Oslo.

Pakistan is pushing for a rapid restart to talks, said Taliban members, Pakistani officials and foreign diplomats, amid one of the worst flare-ups of fighting during 14 years of insurgency in Afghanistan.

A person close to Mullah Mansour said it could take months for the Taliban’s new leadership to quell internal dissent, prove its toughness on the battlefield and build support for participation in negotiations. A wave of attacks starting on Friday in Afghanistan killed at least 77 people and injured hundreds, with three separate bombings hitting Kabul, the capital. “Without unity, there can be no peace,” said a person close to the Taliban.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared on Friday that “we absolutely do not accept that we have any control over the Taliban. But we do have relations with them to the extent that we can persuade them to talk to Afghanistan.”

Earlier in the week, Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif issued a pointed statement saying negotiations were “the only credible way to achieve lasting peace”.

Pakistan’s push to restart talks is in part a result of its realisation that a more stable Afghanistan will help in General Sharif’s fight against its own Islamist militants, who find sanctuary across the border in Afghanistan, analysts said. It is also a result of a willingness by the new government in Kabul to use Pakistan as an interlocutor in the peace process.

“We have seen I think quite significant movement here from the Pakistani government with regard to the Taliban,” said Dan Feldman, the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Current and former US national security officials said it was too soon to determine how Pakistan would use its influence over the new Taliban leadership.

If Islamabad is unable to persuade the Taliban to reach a negotiated political settlement, it could change course. “At the highest level, Pakistan has become committed to a peace deal, but still it will not put all its eggs in one basket,” said a foreign diplomat involved in the peace process.

Since the US ousted the Taliban in 2001, Mullah Mansour and other leaders have been based in Pakistan, where Afghan and US officials say they have enjoyed covert support from Pakistani military and intelligence officers. Islamabad denies aiding the Taliban.

Mullah Mansour lives mostly in Quetta, but as with other Taliban leaders, spent most of his time between 2005 and 2013 in Karachi, Taliban members said. He has business interests in Pakistan, too, in mining, and trade in cars and machinery, as well as property in Quetta and Karachi, said Taliban members.

His new No 2, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is considered by those in the Taliban as a loyalist of Pakistani intelligence. Haqqani’s brother and fellow militant Nasiruddin Haqqani was living on the outskirts of Islamabad when he was assassinated there in 2013. The US considers the Haqqani network a terrorist group. The US military has called the Haqqanis a “veritable arm” of the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

It remains unclear how effective Pakistan will be in using its leverage over the Taliban.

Top members of the movement, including relatives of Mullah Omar and Abdul Qayum Zakir, former head of the Taliban’s military commission, opposed Mullah Mansour’s appointment.

A senior Pakistan security official suggested that Kabul, rather than declare publicly that it had evidence Mullah Omar died in the Pakistan in 2013, should have kept quiet and carried on with the peace talks.

The Taliban confirmed Mullah Omar’s death, but denied it occurred in Pakistan. There has been anger among members of the Taliban over how Mullah Mansour and other leaders released orders and statements in the name of Mullah Omar after his death. Officials in Kabul, too, resent what some see as Pakistan’s complicity in hiding Mullah Omar’s death.

“We want answers,” said a senior Afghan security official. “Did you want us to talk to a dead man? Do you really want peace talks? Who did you want us to make peace with?”