Afghan Taliban close ranks around chief

(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.