KABUL, Afghanistan — In a sign of deep political tension within the Taliban, a collection of religious leaders in the group’s headquarters in Pakistan issued a letter of rebuke this month to the new insurgent leader over his bloody crackdown on dissenting commanders.
It was unclear whether the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed in interviews with several Taliban commanders, would amount to more than a symbolic setback for the Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour. He has aggressively consolidated power since he was named leader in July. Commanders say he has kept a grip on the group’s biggest sources of income, including the trafficking of opium.
The Taliban commanders and members of the group’s ruling council at the headquarters in Quetta, Pakistan, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal negotiations, differed on how much weight was carried by the letter from the religious leaders. But they agreed that it reflected unease over infighting and deadly crackdowns ordered by Mullah Mansour, including the deployment of hundreds of fighters to kill a rival senior commander this month.
The letter continued an uncommonly public airing of internal Taliban power struggles since the revelation this summer that the group’s founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, had been dead for at least two years. Still, though Afghan and Western officials have sought to portray the factional disputes as a sign of weakness for the Taliban, there has been little evidence of that on the battlefield this year, where the insurgents have made sweeping gains.
Instead, the letter was a sign that little was forgiven between Mullah Mansour and his biggest rival within the Taliban, Mullah Qayum Zakir, a former detainee at Guantánamo Bay and an aggressive senior military commander.
Although Mullah Zakir has urged unity within the Taliban and told his commanders that he and Mullah Mansour continued to work together, he was reported to be highly disgruntled over Mullah Mansour’s rise to power this summer. And he cited the religious council’s letter in recent communication with his commanders urging them to refuse any orders to engage in internal crackdowns, those commanders said.
In the 15-page letter dated Dec. 7, a group of about three dozen religious leaders in Quetta refused to grant religious legitimacy to Mullah Mansour’s leadership. The collective condemned his recent crackdowns, saying he still lacked the stature to declare that dissenters were outlaws.
“Today, we do not have the kind of Amir ul-Momineen, according to the Sharia, with whom obedience is mandatory and dissent from whom is punishable by death,” the ruling said, referring to the title the Taliban use for their leader.
Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Taliban, sought to play down the religious leaders’ letter, insisting that most of the names on the document were not of prominent people and that the signatures of the known scholars were made up. “It’s an old fake version that popped up with a new date,” he said.
Other Taliban officials, however, said that the ruling was real — though they differed on the weight it carried — and that it was being widely talked about within the Taliban.
Mullah Zakir’s reference to the ruling in his directions to commanders suggests that he is trying to make an issue of Mullah Mansour’s leadership, after keeping relatively silent for months since he resigned his post as the Taliban’s military operations commander in protest over the rise of Mullah Mansour.
Mullah Zakir’s commanders said he called them to a large gathering in Quetta last week. He also sent a two-page letter to them, drawing directly on the ruling by the religious leaders as he urged his men in the field to avoid infighting and to refuse orders when asked to fight fellow Taliban. Mullah Zakir has also sent envoys to talk with his fighters in other provinces.
In the letter, obtained by The Times and confirmed by commanders who received it, Mullah Zakir said he was among the “limited few” who knew of Mullah Omar’s death from tuberculosis when it occurred in 2013.
“If your superiors are cutting off supplies and rations and if they are removing you from your posts, let them,” Mullah Zakir wrote to his commanders.
While expressing no intention to personally challenge Mullah Mansour for the leadership, Mullah Zakir has promised Mullah Mansour a face-saving way out if he were to slowly give up the leadership and open the way for a new leader, said Qari Fasihuddin, a Taliban commander in Badakhshan Province. He recently met with two of Mullah Zakir’s envoys, who came to check out the increasingly divided battle front there.
The envoys were carrying a message of calm from Mullah Zakir, with a sense of deadline: “Do not pull the dagger at each other at least for the next three months,” Mr. Fasihuddin said.
The Taliban’s recent offensive in Helmand — where insurgents are contesting several districts and even knocking at the gates of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah — has helped put Mullah Zakir in the limelight. Forces loyal to him are pressing one of the three military fronts in Helmand, which is a lucrative prize for both the opium income it generates as well as its marble mines.
Mullah Mansour’s power, though, does not yet seem to be in serious jeopardy.
Even as Mullah Zakir’s dispute with Mullah Mansour appears to have persisted, the two men continue to have working contacts, and Mullah Zakir’s men still receive resources from the senior leadership.
“We are not separated from the emirate and we have been receiving our ration — it has not been cut off,” said Mullah Nastrayar, a commander in Helmand loyal to Mullah Zakir.
In the years since he began quietly consolidating power while Mullah Omar’s death was kept secret, Mullah Mansour established a monopoly of sorts over the Taliban’s stream of resources, according to Taliban commanders and security analysts.
He is known to be deeply involved in narcotics trafficking, which has been a major source of income for the Taliban as a whole. The United Nations listed him as one of the earliest Taliban commanders to be involved in the drug trade.
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“Mansour has increasingly established his control over the resources since 2012,” said Borhan Osman, a researcher with the Afghan Analysts Network who has closely tracked the Taliban.
As part of larger centralization he orchestrated over the last three years, Mullah Mansour placed supporters in crucial positions like the head of the Taliban finance committee. And he made sure that fund-raising in the Persian Gulf countries is controlled by his trusted men, Mr. Osman said.
“At one point Mansour introduced his own men to fund-raisers in the Gulf and basically said: ‘This is our only channel; please avoid others,’ ” Mr. Osman said.
Mullah Mansour has also managed to recruit the family members of Mullah Omar who initially expressed discontent with his selection as leader. Mullah Omar’s brother, Mullah Manan, has been given a position in the finance committee, and his son, Mullah Yaqoub, a military post and is being groomed for the kind of position Mullah Zakir once held, a Taliban leader close to Mullah Mansour said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/world/asia/taliban-chief-rebuked-by-religious-leaders-in-sign-of-turmoil.html?ref=world&_r=0
