KABUL(SW): After the mysterious death of Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Omar, one of his aides Mullah Mansour took the responsibility of leading the militants.
At the beginning, Mullah Omar`s family were against him and Mullah Abdul Rasul, a member of Taliban’s Central Council announced himself as the leader of the Taliban.
At the beginning, these oppositions were only verbal but after a while, it turned into armed clashes between the rival groups. In the latest such clashes, at least 100 militants from both sides were either killed or wounded in Shindand district of Herat province.
In some ways, split among the Taliban was merely good news but many saw this development from a different perspective.
From the Analysts’ prospective, Pakistan feels the Taliban have become more independent and less controllable for them and are negotiating with the government of Afghanistan and other regional countries on their own. Analysts believe that this compelled Pakistan to divide the Taliban and control them once again.
Waheed Muzhda, an analyst, believed that the split among the Taliban serves Pakistan better.This analyst believed that the differences between Mulla Rasul and Mullah Mansour were not new and were in fact there since 2007. It is said that Mullah Rasul did not attend any meeting of the Central Council since, though he was member of this body.
Zubair Shafiqi, Chief Edtor of Wesa Newspaper, said in this regard that conflicts among the Taliban have made the peace talks more complex. He said that Pakistan understands that talks with a strong and cohesive group is more effective than many small groups and that is why it wanted to split the Taliban to make any peace deal less effective. Saeed Akbar Agha, former Taliban leaders however, believe these conflicts among the Taliban are usual and will have no effects on peace talks. He rejected the Pakistan was behind it.
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