The Taliban after Omar

The world learned last week that Taliban leader Mohammad Omar is dead and may have been dead since April 2013. The announcement was bad news for peace talks and good news for the Islamic State.Omar was a major figure in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In my years in Afghanistan as a civilian adviser to the U.S. military, I learned that this rarely seen and poorly educated man had won the respect of many Afghans. One well-known former member of the Taliban described Omar as a “true mullah, a true Pashtun and a true Afghan.” Even Abdul Raziq, Kandahar’s infamous police chief and no friend of the Taliban, once told me: “All Taliban obey Mullah Omar. The Taliban will not simply start fighting each other. They are one. This is their advantage over the government.”Read full article >>