(ANSA - Rome, February 5 - Afghanistan's Taliban are closing
ranks around their new leader after months of infighting that
followed the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, which could allow
the insurgents to speak with one voice in hoped-for peace
talks but will also strengthen them on the battlefield, the
Associated Press reported.
The Afghan government's announcement last summer that Mullah
Omar, the reclusive one-eyed founder of the group, had died
two years earlier in Pakistan aggravated longtime rifts within
the movement. Many senior figures said his
deputy-turned-successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, had
deliberately misled them.
The upheaval led to the collapse of Pakistan-brokered
face-to-face talks between Kabul and the Taliban after just
one round, and clashes flared between Mansoor loyalists and a
splinter group led by Mullah Mohammad Rasool, which declared
him the leader of the Taliban in November.
But Abdul Rauf, a Taliban commander close to Rasool, said
senior Taliban figures who had objected to the rapid and
secretive succession are now reluctantly returning to the
fold. "We all took a stand against Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, but
now one by one we are joining with him without demanding any
changes," he said.
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