Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Financial Times
December 31, 2007 By Jon Boone, in Kabul
In a sign that even the Taliban is not immune from internal disputes and splits, one of the movement’s most senior military commanders was reportedly sacked on Saturday.
A spokesman for the organisation said that Mansoor Dadullah, who operates in the south of the country, had been kicked out of the Islamist militia for “disobeying orders” and conducting operations “against the Taliban’s rules and regulations”.
But Mr Dadullah, who denied that he had been sacked, said that the move was a “conspiracy by my enemies”. Details of Mr Dadullah’s disobedience have not been revealed. One early assessment of the episode by diplomatic sources in Kabul was that the apparent public sacking was “designed to send a message to other Taliban fighters not to do business with the international community and the government of Afghanistan”.
Reports that MI6 officers have conducted secret talks with the Taliban in Helmand surfaced last week. The British government refused to comment on them.
Mr Dadullah, speaking to the Pakistan-based Islamic Press news agency, denied he had recently met foreigners in Helmand and said that, unlike some members of the movement, he remained committed to working with al-Qaeda. “I was and am with al-Qaeda. They are Muslims and Allah has made them our brothers. However, some Taliban want to dissociate themselves from them, but I have not separated from them.”
Mr Dadullah rose through Taliban ranks in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed in May.
December 31, 2007 By Jon Boone, in Kabul
In a sign that even the Taliban is not immune from internal disputes and splits, one of the movement’s most senior military commanders was reportedly sacked on Saturday.
A spokesman for the organisation said that Mansoor Dadullah, who operates in the south of the country, had been kicked out of the Islamist militia for “disobeying orders” and conducting operations “against the Taliban’s rules and regulations”.
But Mr Dadullah, who denied that he had been sacked, said that the move was a “conspiracy by my enemies”. Details of Mr Dadullah’s disobedience have not been revealed. One early assessment of the episode by diplomatic sources in Kabul was that the apparent public sacking was “designed to send a message to other Taliban fighters not to do business with the international community and the government of Afghanistan”.
Reports that MI6 officers have conducted secret talks with the Taliban in Helmand surfaced last week. The British government refused to comment on them.
Mr Dadullah, speaking to the Pakistan-based Islamic Press news agency, denied he had recently met foreigners in Helmand and said that, unlike some members of the movement, he remained committed to working with al-Qaeda. “I was and am with al-Qaeda. They are Muslims and Allah has made them our brothers. However, some Taliban want to dissociate themselves from them, but I have not separated from them.”
Mr Dadullah rose through Taliban ranks in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed in May.