KABUL, Afghanistan — Solidifying reports of high-level rifts within the Taliban over the group’s leadership succession, the head of the insurgents’ official diplomatic delegation in Qatar publicly resigned on Monday.
The resignation of the official, Tayeb Agha, the head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar and a longtime confidant to the late supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, came after an intense debate over the appointment of the movement’s new commander last week. Some senior Taliban figures have accused the new leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, of keeping Mullah Omar’s death a secret for nearly two years, until its confirmation last week, in order to tighten his own grip over the movement.
Opposition to Mullah Mansour’s appointment has come from Mullah Omar’s brother, Mullah Abdul Manan Hotak; his oldest son, Mullah Muhammad Yaqoub; and several other Taliban leaders who say he arranged a hasty succession process in Quetta, Pakistan, where not all senior members were given a vote, according to Taliban officials close to the proceedings.
On Tuesday, efforts were underway to mediate the differences between Mullah Mansour and members of Mullah Omar’s family. A group of nearly 200 religious leaders and tribal elders traveled from Peshawar, Pakistan, where some Taliban members are based, to Quetta and met with the brother and son of Mullah Omar, asking them to end the dispute with Mullah Mansour.
“The two family members of Mullah Omar said they had no differences with Mullah Mansour, and they are only making complaints against the decision by Mansour to appoint himself without clerics and other members of the Taliban movement being called to the succession meeting,” a member of the Taliban leadership council who was at the meeting said.
In a personal statement released to the public — a rarity from senior Taliban officials — Mr. Agha, who led the prisoner exchange effort that resulted in the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last known American prisoner of war in Afghanistan, called the selection of the new leader a “historical mistake.”
Comparing it to the selection of Afghan communist leaders in Moscow or factional leaders in Pakistan during the bloody civil war, he said such appointments outside the country had brought grave repercussions.
“In the current controversial situation, I am not supporting any side,” Mr. Agha said.
In his statement, Mr. Agha said he had not received any audio message from Mullah Omar, who reportedly died in April 2013, since the beginning of that year. Instead, he began receiving written instructions without a signature, which his superiors told him should be good enough, he said.
“But I was asking for his audio message to eliminate the concerns of the people,” Mr. Agha said.
At the heart of the leadership disagreements in the Taliban ranks is the movement’s policy toward recent peace efforts with the Afghan government that have been facilitated by Pakistani officials.
Under heavy pressure from Pakistani security officials, who have sheltered Mullah Mansour and other senior Taliban leaders, a delegation of Taliban officials attended the first round of meetings with Afghan officials near Islamabad on July 7. The meeting angered other Taliban leaders who had, for years, rejected direct talks with the Afghan government, preferring a slower outreach process without Pakistan’s influence.
For Mr. Agha, whose family members are said to have fled Pakistan for Qatar after repeated harassment by the Pakistani security agencies, the talks in Pakistan derailed a process he had been building toward for years.
His office conducted shuttle diplomacy with delegations of influential Afghan politicians in Doha, Qatar’s capital; Oslo; and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. In email exchanges with The New York Times as Taliban representatives sat down with the Afghan government in Pakistan last month, Mr. Agha’s office harshly denounced the talks, saying the process had been “hijacked” by Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. His aides characterized the Taliban officials who had participated as trying “to save their families and property in Pakistan.”
In his resignation letter, Mr. Agha said the Taliban’s agreement to negotiate through Pakistan had been crucial to the timing of leaking the news of Mullah Omar’s death.
“Efforts are underway regarding all concerned sides of Taliban to seize them in a trap,” he said.
