[DAWN] THE circumstances of Mullah Omar... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title
Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality...
's death may be an ongoing mystery, but other events on the Afghan Taliban front are already eclipsing the rather disturbing questions raised by the contradictory news of the circumstances surrounding Omar's death.
The Taliban have a new leader and two new deputy leaders and at least for now, the new leadership is trying to project a sense of unity and continuity. But whether those efforts will produce the results that Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour and his Haqqani-affiliated deputies, Haibatullah Akhunzada and Sirajuddin Haqqani, want is far from a settled matter.
In the weeks and months ahead, the field commanders and other strands of leadership within the Taliban shura will surely be heard from -- and only then will it be clear if Mansour and his faction can maintain unity.
Already, though, there are troubling signs for the future of talks. Mansour has long been rumoured as being on relatively good terms with the Pak establishment, while the close relationship between the Haqqani network and Pakistain is an open secret.Under Mullah Omar the Afghan Taliban had managed to maintain a sense of independence while simultaneously keeping the lines of communication with Pakistain open, a delicate balancing act that credibly allowed both sides to claim that theirs was no master-stooge relationship.
Now, with a seemingly much more Pak-aligned leadership -- at least prima facie and at the moment -- of the Afghan Taliban, how will that impact the support for talks inside the Afghan state and across the Taliban spectrum?
Afghanistan's Caped President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
has made it clear from the beginning of his term that he believed an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned grinding of the peace processor could only materialise if Afghanistan and Pakistain improve the bilateral relationship.
But within the national unity government generally and within the Afghan security establishment in particular, there remains a great deal of mistrust and suspicion of Pakistain. Will President Ghani find himself under further pressure to reject the idea of talks and a peaceful solution?
Similarly, it is relatively clear now that there are several factions within the Afghan Taliban, even if they have long downplayed their differences to keep up the impression of a cohesive, and winning, Taliban.
If there were no factionalism, no one within the Taliban would have thought to try and hide the news of Mullah Omar's death.
Will Mullah Mansour really be able to rally all factions behind him, especially when it is not yet known to what extent external powers have manipulated their favourites into place and created new frictions?
Worryingly, the lessons of the post-Najibullah period appear to have not been learned and Afghanistan may be more on a knife edge today than it has been in over two decades.
Warlords fighting each other may pale in comparison to Afghan Taliban turning on each other.