KABUL: A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban on Sunday denied a report that the group’s unprofessional chief executive, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, was killed in an explosion in Pakistan.
“This report is completely misleading and far from being… We reject this report… the enemy is under pressure and trying to create trouble by spreading such rumors,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, a person for the Taliban, told Arab News by phone from an undisclosed person. place.
Hashte Subh, who was famous every day in Afghanistan, citing anonymous sources, told Sunday that the explosion occurred at a safe house in Quetta, in the southwestern region of Pakistan in Balochistan, a few months ago. .
“Reliable sources from Quetta told Hashte Subh that Hibatullah Akhundzada, along with Matitullah, the intelligence chief, and Hafiz Abdul Majid, the group’s finance chief, were killed in the Quetta explosion,” excerpts from the reports said. .
The group is said to be operating out of Quetta after their ouster in a U.S.-led attack in Afghanistan in 2001.
Mujahid denied another report claiming Akhundzada’s death a few months ago.
“Our leaders are not in Pakistan and such events cannot be kept secret. The enemy is under great pressure and new propaganda is coming every day, ”he said, referring in part to the Kabul government.
Akhundzada, 60, defeated Mullah Akhtar Mansour in May 2016 after Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike on his vehicle near Quetta.
Mansour replaced Mullah Mohammad Omar, founder of the Taliban movement, in 2015 after Afghan government officials announced that Omar had died in a hospital in Pakistan in 2013. The Taliban kept Omar’s death a secret for nearly two years. .
Renowned as a hard-core religious scholar, Akhundzada’s place was kept secret even from Taliban field leaders for several years, for security reasons.
In August last year, an explosion at a mosque in Quetta – according to Akhundzada according to news reports – killed his brother Ahmadullah. His son was badly injured in the attack.
Akhundzada was reportedly absent from the mosque at the time of the incident which coincided with the start of crucial peace talks inside Afghanistan in Qatar as part of a historic treaty signed between the Taliban and Washington in February. last year.
Rumors of the reported death have been circulating in Afghan circles for some time, especially since there have been no reports or audio recordings by Akhundzada for the past several months specifically mentioning on Qatar talks and subsequent developments.
Haji Agha Lalai, a regional council member of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province – often referred to as the “birthplace” of the Taliban and its capital of power – told Arab News that Akhundzada had not been available for meetings in recent months.
“Some people who wanted to see Akhundzada a few months ago, couldn’t do that and instead a message that was given to him was read to them,” he said.
A top Afghan security official in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity as he has no authority to speak to the media, told Arab News that he had heard of Akhundzada’s murder last summer, but could not to confirm or deny it.
News of Akhundzada’s reported death comes to a halt in the talks within Afghanistan and a revision of clauses in the Doha treaty with the new U.S. administration.
In the treaty, all U.S.-led foreign forces are expected to withdraw from Afghanistan by May 1.
While the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has insisted that the troops and some NATO countries will continue to push for it, the agreement may not see the light of day until the the Taliban agreed to name a ceasefire with Kabul.
NATO members are expected to meet later in the week to discuss whether to keep troops in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, for their part, have been urging Washington once again to honor the treaty signed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Our message to the forthcoming NATO ministerial meeting is that it is not in your interests or in the interests of our people and you,” the Taliban said in a statement issued on Saturday.