REUTERS] At the Taliban meeting this week where Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was named as the Islamist murderous Moslem group's new head, several senior figures in the movement, including the son and brother of late leader 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...
, walked out in protest.
The display of dissent within the group's secretive core is the clearest sign yet of the challenge Mansour faces in uniting a group already split over whether to pursue peace talks with the Afghan government and facing a new, external threat - Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
Rifts in the Taliban leadership are likely to widen after confirmation this week of the death of elusive founder Omar.
Mansour, Omar's longtime deputy who has been effectively in charge for years, favors talks to bring an end to more than 13 years of war. He recently sent a delegation to inaugural meetings with Afghan officials hosted by Pakistain, hailed as a breakthrough.
But Mansour, 50, has powerful rivals within the Taliban who oppose negotiations, notably battlefield commander Abdul Qayum Zakir, a former inmate of the U.S. prison in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.
Zakir is pushing for Mullah Omar's son Yaqoob to take over the movement, and a sizeable faction also supports Yaqoob.
Yaqoob and his uncle Abdul Manan, Omar's younger brother, were among several Taliban figures who walked out of Wednesday's leadership meeting held in the western Pak city of Quetta, according to three people who were at the shura, or gathering.
"Actually, it wasn't a Taliban Leadership Council meeting. Mansoor had invited only members of his group to pave the way for his election," said one of the sources, a senior member of Taliban in Quetta.
"And when Yaqoob and Manan noticed this, they left the meeting."
PEACE TALKS IN JEOPARDY
The leadership shura, or gathering, was held outside Quetta, where many Taliban leaders have been based since their hardline regime in Afghanistan was toppled in a 2001 U.S.-led military intervention.
Afghan Taliban leaders have long had sanctuaries in Pakistain, even as Pak government officials have denied offering support in recent years.
Mansour leads the Taliban's strongest faction and appears to control most of its spokesmen, websites and statements, said Graeme Smith, senior Afghanistan analyst for the think-tank International Crisis Group.
But some intelligence officials estimate Mansour only directly controls about 40 percent of fighters in the field, he said.
That could make it difficult for him to deliver on any ceasefire that could emerge from future negotiations.
And Taliban insiders say that by sending a three-member delegation to meet Afghan officials in the Pak resort of Murree earlier in July, Mansour sparked new criticism.
Especially riled were members of the Taliban's political office in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates...
, who insisted only they were empowered to negotiate.
"People ... were not happy with Mullah Mansour‎ when he agreed with ‎Pakistain ... to hold a meeting with 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....
," said a Taliban capo based in Quetta.
"The Qatar office wasn't taken into confidence before taking such an important decision."
The Quetta shura has sent a six-member team to Qatari capital Doha to meet with one of its leaders, Tayyab Agha, seeking his support for Mansour, according to another Taliban source close to the leadership.