HANOI, Vietnam — An American drone strike in a restive province of Pakistan killed Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the leader of the AfghanTaliban, the White House confirmed on Monday.
Calling the death “an important milestone,” President Obama said in a statement, released just as he was meeting with top officials in Vietnam, that the United States had “removed the leader of an organization that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and coalition forces.”
“Mansour rejected efforts by the Afghan government to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that has taken the lives of countless innocent Afghan men, women and children,” Mr. Obama continued in the statement. “The Taliban should seize the opportunity to pursue the only real path for ending this long conflict — joining the Afghan government in a reconciliation process that leads to lasting peace and stability.”
At a news conference with President Tran Dai Quang of Vietnam, Mr. Obama said that targeting Mullah Mansour did not represent a shift in strategy for the United States mission in Afghanistan.
“We are not re-entering the day-to-day combat operations that are currently being conducted by Afghanistan forces,” he said.
But Mullah Mansour was a danger to American forces there, he said.
“He is an individual who as head of the Taliban was specifically targeting U.S. personnel and troops inside of Afghanistan who are there as part of the mission I have set to maintain a counterterrorism platform and provide assistance,” Mr. Obama said.
Killing Mullah Mansour sent a message that “we’re going to protect our people,” he said.
The strike was the first such American drone attack in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which is the de facto headquarters of the Afghan Taliban. Nearly all other drone strikes have taken place in other Pakistani and Afghan areas.
The death of Mullah Mansour, who was consolidating his authority over a fracturing Taliban as the militants made major gains on the battlefield, throws the insurgency into its second leadership crisis within a year. Still, it was unclear whether it could create any significant breathing space for the government of President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, which has struggled to bring the insurgency into negotiations.
Even with no clear successor to Mullah Mansour, the issue of peace talks has long been seen as deeply unpopular among the Taliban’s most senior leadership
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