Killing of Taliban chief Mullah Mansour will damage US-Pakistan ties

The death of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike carried out 81km inside Pakistan in North Waziristan, on May 21, without prior intimation to Pakistanm could become a game changer in the AfPak region.

Even before Mansour's death was confirmed, Pakistan summoned the US ambassador and lodged a protest against the drone attack violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

But Pakistan cannot miss the cold reality of the event when president Obama hailed the death of Mansour as "an important milestone" indicating the changing contours of US policy towards Pakistan.

It was an embarrassing moment for Pakistan as Mansour was found to have travelled under a false Pakistan passport. And the passport indicated he had been travelling with impunity to gulf countries many times. These only substantiated that the old links of Pakistan's ISI with Mansour established when Taliban-ruled Pakistan had been in tact all along.

The charred body of the pseudonymous Pakistani that Mansour was, was handed over to an unverified relative according to the colourful follow up of a Pakistani columnist. But Pakistan's problems now are much more than embarrassment.

The US president, who is on a visit to Hanoi, in a statement on the Mullah's death stressed American forces would continue to go after threats on Pakistan soil. However, if we go by his full statement, the US still considers Pakistan an indispensible ally in its war against al Qaeda.

Obama's words: "We will work on shared objectives with Pakistan, where terrorists that threaten all our nations must be denied safe haven" provides Pakistan a face saving but bitter option. Pakistan has been grudgingly accepting a "friendly relationship" with the US all along for reasons of real politick. But the US president's statement laying down the conditions that go with probably makes only makes it mor bitter to Pakistan rulers and establishment including the army.

For over a decade and a half, Pakistan had been denying the presence important Taliban leaders in Pakistan and the American establishment had gone along with the fiction due to strategic compulsions of its war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan had swept under the carpet, the US raid on Osama bin Laden's safe house inside Pakistan in Abbottabad to kill the archpriest of al Qaeda without informing Pakistan perhaps as an exception. But Mullah Mansour's killing has shown the exception may become the routine if we go by Obama's statement.

It added, "We have removed the leader of an organization that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and coalition forces, to wage war against the Afghan people, and align itself with extremist groups like al Qaeda."

The US president's statement has triggered alarm bells in Pakistan. Its relations with the US have been facing turbulence over its double faced policy of providing sanctuaries to jihadi terrorists operating against Afghanistan.

The turbulence increased further after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's summit meeting with president Obama in September 2014. On the occasion the two countries agreed to make joint and concerted efforts to dismantle safe havens for terror and criminal networks like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, al Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

Pakistan's issues with the US were further aggravated when president Obama in an interview on the eve of his visit to India in January 2015 told India Today that he had "made it clear that even as the United States works with Pakistan to meet the threat of terrorism, safe havens within Pakistan are not acceptable and those behind the Mumbai terrorist attack must face justice."

Since then Indo-US cooperation on counter terrorism, particularly on information sharing has made much progress. And it is taking place as a part of the strategic convergence between the two countries much to the discomfort of Pakistan and its strategic ally China.

The killing of Mansour only widens the existing cracks in US-Pak relations. It comes on top of US senators branding Pakistan as "frenemy" to bar the government from financing Pakistan's $700 million deal to buy eight F-16 fighters from the US. This was in sharp contrast to the US attitude five years back when it had gifted Pakistan 14 used F-16 fighters shed by US troops getting out of Afghanistan.

To add to Pakistan's agony, two weeks back the US House of Representatives, while passing the defense budget, tied $450 million aid to Pakistan to a crackdown on the Haqqani network! Now the Senate has demanded "demonstrable action" against the Haqqani network from Pakistan before releasing the fund.

In the power vacuum created by the death of Mansour retaliatory Taliban attacks and suicide bombings in Afghanistan are likely to be stepped up. Even as the Taliban Shura was meeting to select a new leader, ten persons of judicial staff travelling in a bus were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul.

According to Taliban spokesman it was carried out in response to the government's decision to execute six Taliban prisoners on death row.

Usually, favourite targets of jihadi attacks are Indian, American and NATO diplomatic and military establishments and Afghan military and internal security entities. They will have to be more vulnerable now than ever before. It would be prudent for American establishments in Pakistan also to be ready to ward off such Taliban inspired attacks from the "friendlies".

Mansour had unique skills. He managed to hide the death of Mullah Omar in 2013 from the rank and file and manage the organization till July 2015. When Omar's death was exposed, he came out successful in the power struggle to lead Taliban's resurgence. This was manifested when Taliban captured Kudruz, Afghan provincial capital in September 2015.

Although the government forces recaptured the city after about a month of fighting, it sent a strong message that Taliban was back in business after a decade and a half. The strong resistance put up by the Taliban showed a new spirit of confidence among the cadres. Since then the Taliban has stepped up its attacks in many parts the country after the NATO forces were withdrawn, heightening the fears of president Ghani government. Only last month, Taliban carried out a suicide attack on the headquarters of an elite military unit in Central Kabul killing over thirty people.

Mullah Mansour's death has sent shockwaves among the members of the Taliban leadership council (Shura) holed up in Pakistan. They are now scrambling to protect themselves from possible American attacks while trying to find a successor to the slain Taliban leader. The job of finding a replacement for Mansour was not easy.

According to Kabul media, the two known contenders for the leadership mantle - Mullah Yakoub son of Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani group and deputy to the slain leader -were not willing to accept the leadership for their own reasons. Reuters have reported that the Taliban's Shura has chosen Haibatullah Akhunzada, an aide of Mansour as the Emir to lead the organisation.

Sirajudding Haqqani and Mullah Yakoub will serve as deputies. Akhunzada, former chief justice of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, will be having a tough job in hand to forge a unified organisation.

In the context of finding a successor to Mansour, comments by the Pakistan daily Nation are interesting.

It said: "...the best bet for Taliban (and Pakistan too in case it wants to carry on with past policy of keeping assets) would be to get Mullah Yakoub as Emir, while keeping Sirajuddin Haqqani and Habibatullah Akhundzada as deputies."

Now that Akhunzada has been chosen as the leader, will Pakistan "keep the assets" in the face of loud American objections and strong action?

This would probably be one more foil in the power game in Islamabad where prime minister Nawaz Sharif is facing increased pressure from a belligerent Pakistan army.

And the Great Game will be on in Afghanistan with national and international stakeholders ostensibly trying to resurrect the peace process killed in the wake of Kudruz attack.