The Pulse

The Afghan Government Should Take Advantage of Mullah Omar’s Death ASAP

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The Pulse

The Afghan Government Should Take Advantage of Mullah Omar’s Death ASAP

The Afghan government has a unique opening with Omar’s death. It shouldn’t squander it.

The Afghan Government Should Take Advantage of Mullah Omar’s Death ASAP
Credit: Flickr/MEAphotogallery

It is now confirmed that the erstwhile leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, is no longer in this world. Moreover, he has been dead and buried (somewhere in Afghanistan) for over two years, unknown to most of the Taliban. The death of Mullah Omar changes the calculus in Afghanistan as it impacts ongoing negotiations between the Taliban and the government. It has been suggested that groups as disparate as the Afghan government, the Chinese government, and the West may all miss Mullah Omar because he was the glue that held the Taliban together and made negotiating with them meaningful.

In fact, the Taliban is already fragmenting and that is a good thing. It is precisely because top commanders did not want the movement to fragment that they kept Mullah Omar’s death secret; but now that the cat is out of the bag, it is too late to stuff it back in. In addition to Mullah Omar, another key Taliban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Network—allies of the Taliban based in Waziristan, Pakistan—was revealed to have died over a year ago (he is also buried in Afghanistan). With these important leaders gone, the Taliban is rudderless. An ally of the group and notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declared his support for the Islamic State last month.

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