Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi told a group of around 200 followers in eastern Afghanistan that his faction had no faith in the government but was willing to negotiate without pre-conditions.
Niazi is deputy to Mullah Mohammad Rasool, who split from the Taliban last summer after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was chosen to succeed the group’s late founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Mansour was killed earlier this month in a US drone strike in Pakistain and was replaced days later by a little-known conservative holy man, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada...Deputy to Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour...
The main Taliban faction has expressed similar demands, but says it will only enter peace talks after they have been met. The US and NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
officially ended their combat mission more than a year ago, but thousands of foreign soldiers remain in the country, mainly carrying out training, support and counter-terrorism operations. Mansour had refused to participate in a grinding of the peace processor initiated by 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. ..
The main Taliban faction’s front man, Zabihullah Mujahid, has branded Rasool’s faction "a government army in the shape of the Taliban".Speaking on Sunday, he claimed that Rasool was supported by Kabul
...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title
Most Evil Man in the Worldand didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either....
and Washington. "For us he is nothing more than a local policeman or a puppet of Afghan intelligence," he said.
Rasool’s followers met in the mountainous Shindand district, near the border with Iran. Snipers on hilltops surveyed dirt roads leading to the area, which serves as the main base for the mobile fighters.
The encampment where the meeting was held is only accessible by cycle of violence or horse. The turbaned followers of Rasool appeared to be armed with new weapons, including automatic rifles and grenade launchers.
The Taliban have continued to launch major attacks on government forces despite the internal conflict, and the war has shown no sign of abating over the past year.
The Taliban attacked checkpoints in the southern Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province late on Saturday, killing four coppers, according to the provincial governor’s front man, Omar Zawaq.
Among those killed was local police commander Safar Mohammad, who in recent years had successfully kept highways in the area open to traffic. Zawaq said another nine coppers and one soldier were maimed in the attack.