Only liberals capitulate to terrorists, befriend them, embolden them with weak decisions and non action...then brag about how many of them they killed.
Obama has done more to promote terror, release dangerous POWs, isolate our allies and has more blood on his hands than any president at any time.
Congrats guys!
Obama has done more to promote terror, release dangerous POWs, isolate our allies and has more blood on his hands than any president at any time.
Congrats guys!
never gets old, fucking pussy
tell me who has more testosterone again
Lol...what a pussy. I saw this picture before and noticed how homo Obama looked...what I did not notice was how much more manly Michelle is than Barry! Fkin hilarious! Thanks for sharing Willie...describes his tenure to a T
The still photo from Sinclair is real and everyone (except Finch) knows that the door kick by Obama is a totally false video. He can chalk it up to sarcasm and move on.
Video of President Obama Kicking a Door-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:A forwarded video of what appears to be President Obama angrily kicking a door after a press conference.
The Truth:
The video was a digital manipulation by the special effects department at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on NBC for a joke that the late night host delivered during one of his monologs. The video, complete with a set up by Leno was found on the program’s web site. Click for Tonight Show video.
On the video, Leno set up the joke saying that the President’s body language as he was leaving the podium may have revealed that the bipartisan leadership talks had not been as smoothly as President Obama had stated. The version of the video that circulated on the Internet left out the set up by Leno but failed to edit out all of the audience laughter at the end of the video. Some versions of this video are circulating on the Internet without any audio.
Smoked: Dramatic pictures show fried car and charred bodies of Afghan Taliban leader and his driver after they were wiped out in pinpoint US drone strike
PUBLISHED: 21:48, 21 May 2016 | UPDATED: 15:35, 22 May 2016
Dramatic photographs have emerged of the bodies of Afghan Taliban boss Mullah Akhtar Mansour and his driver after the pair were killed a targeted drone strike authorized by Barack Obama.
The images show two bodies - believed to be that of Mansour and the driver of the car - after they were pulled from vehicle wreckage at the weekend.
However, it is not clear which body is that of Mansour. The images show the badly burned feet of one man, while another body is unidentifiable inside a wooden coffin.
Both the Taliban and the Afghanistan Government have now confirmed his death after he was killed travelling in a remote area of the border with Pakistan.
.
+13
The wreckage of the car carrying Mansour and a driver is pictured still flaming following the drone strike
+13
Little was left of the vehicle after it was decimated in the strike on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
+13
The two bodies (pictured) were held at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, though it was not clear which was purported to be that of Mansour
+13
Mansour had led the Afghan Taliban ever since the death of its founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar
Earlier in the day Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah had said that Mansour was 'more than likely' dead.
Speaking live on television as he chaired a Cabinet meeting, Abdullah said Mansour's death would have a positive impact on attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been waging an insurgency for 15 years.
Mansour was 'the main figure preventing the Taliban joining the peace process', Abdullah said.
.
'From the day he took over the Taliban following the death of Mullah Omar, he intensified violence against ordinary citizens, especially in Afghanistan.'
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Myanmar today, repeatedly referred to Mansour in the past tense.
Mansour, he said 'posed a continuing imminent threat to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians, Afghan security forces' and members of the U.S./NATO coalition.
He said the air strike on Mansour 'sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to stand with our Afghan partners'.
'Peace is what we want, Mansur was a threat to that effort,' Kerry said. 'He also was directly opposed to peace negotiations and to the reconciliation process. It is time for Afghans to stop fighting and to start building a real future together.'
It remains unclear what the role was of the second man killed in the car. The Pentagon initially called him a fellow 'combatant', but officials told AFP he was a civilian who worked for a local rental company.
It isn't the first time Mansour has been attacked: In December, he was reported wounded and maybe killed in a shootout at the house of another Taliban leader near Quetta in Pakistan.
+13
On Saturday the U.S. carried out a drone strike on Mullah Akhtar Mansour (pictured), who had been leader of the Afghanistan Taliban since July 2015. He is now believed to be dead, the Pentagon said
But this time the U.S. took no chances, using multiple drones to attack him.
It has now emerged Mansour had just returned from Iran when the vehicle was struck.
Pakistani ID documents found on the alleged militant leader could shed light on the degree of official support he received in the country.
His passport showed he had left for Iran on March 28 and returned the day he was killed.
'He was returning from Iran when he was hit by a drone strike near the town of Ahmad Wal,' one security official said.
He added that the driver, Muhammad Azim, worked for the Al Habib car rental company based out of Quetta.
An immigration official at the border town of Taftan confirmed the man's travel dates, adding that he was carrying euros when he entered Pakistan which he then converted to Pakistani rupees.
A passport and ID card recovered from the scene, photographs of which were seen by AFP, gave the man's name as Muhammad Wali, a resident of Killa Abdullah district of Baluchistan province who was born on January 1, 1972.
The second address listed on his ID card was in Karachi. The photographs on both documents both closely resemble known photographs of Mullah Mansour.
It was not immediately clear whether the documents were counterfeit or genuine.
The two corpses were later brought to the Civil Hospital in the provincial capital Quetta, where they were handed over to relatives after autopsies.
A hospital source said both were badly burnt and the corpse of the man named as Muhammad Wali was charred beyond recognition.
The source said there was a 'huge difference' between the way the bodies were treated.
'A youth who gave his name as Muhammad Rafiq and said he was the nephew of Muhammad Wali came with some plainclothes intelligence officials and demanded the body be immediately handed over to him.'
'The examination was done in no time and the body was taken away, while no one asked the nephew to prove his ID,' the source added.
+13
Pictures showed the bodies of the two men after they had been killed in the pinpoint U.S. drone strike
+13
The coffin containing the body of one of those killed is loaded into the back of an ambulance in Pakistan
+13
A police officer stands beside a body of one of the two people killed in a US drone in Noshki. It is not clear if it is the body of Mansour, or his driver
+13
A group of men cover a body with blankets after he was killed in the drone strike on the Pakistan side of the border
The strike took place at about 3pm local time on the Pakistani side of a remote area of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to the official.
The drones targeted the men as they rode in a vehicle southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.
Mansour, who has been in charge of the Taliban in Afghanistan since the summer of 2015, was described as 'an obstacle to peace' in the country by Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary, when he announced the man's death.
As the leader of the group - which now holds more Afghanistan territory than at any time since they were ousted from control by a U.S. intervention in 2001 - he forbade Taliban members from engaging in peace talks with the Afghanistan government.
He was also planning attacks against Afghanistan and U.S. forces, Cook claimed.
However, Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told Reuters that even if Mansour is dead the Taliban won't go straight to the negotiating table.
'The Taliban won't simply meekly agree to talks and especially as this strike could worsen the fragmentation within the organization,' he said.
And Andrew Wilder, a senior analyst at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, told The Washington Post Mansour's death could galvanize the Taliban to prove it can still fight back.
'No one in the Taliban ranks is going to seriously be talking about pushing the peace talks further,' he said.
And it's not known whether Mansour's deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, will be accepted as the new leader, given that Mansour only made it to the top after some vicious infighting.
And with no clear successor, Mansour's death 'will provoke a crisis inside the Taliban', Bruce Riedel, an Afghanistan expert at the Brookings Institution think-tank, told Reuters.
That could lead to their guerrilla operations being compromised over the summer.
+13
Location: Mansour was attacked southwest of Ahmad Wal, on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Another person was killed with him
+13
Obstacle: Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary, said Mansour was 'an obstacle to peace' in the country. Mansour's death could take days to confirm, an unnamed source said
Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary said Saturday: 'Today, the Department of Defense conducted an airstrike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mansur in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
'Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and Coalition partners.
'We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available.'
He continued: 'Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour's assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous U.S. and Coalition personnel.'
The announcement was met with approval by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate's more hawkish Republicans, CNN reported.
'I'm glad to hear we decided to bring the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, to justice,' Graham said. 'I appreciate President Obama for authorizing the attack. And job-well-done to the members of our military and intelligence communities who carried out the mission.'
However, he asked Obama not to remove ground troops from the country 'until conditions on the ground permit their withdrawal'.
+13
Policy: Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr., Afghanistan's new U.S. commander (pictured) is now reviewing policy. Senator John McCain hopes the strike against Mansour signals an increased focus on the Taliban
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John W. Nicholson, Jr., is currently reviewing U.S. strategy, including possibly reducing the number of U.S. forces or implementing broader powers to target insurgents.
Under present policy, the U.S. will only target Taliban members in three circumstances: when U.S. or coalition forces are threatened, when the Taliban is believed to be providing direct help to Al-Qaeda, or when the Taliban poses a strategic threat to Afghan forces.
That's a policy that U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hopes will change after the attack on Mansour.
'Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001 - to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists,' McCain said.
Predecessor: Mullah Mohammad Omar (pictured) was the Afghanistan Taliban leader before Mansour, who was his deputy. Mansour took over in 2015, after it emerged Omar had died two years earlier
'The Taliban remains allied with these terrorists, including al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, and it is the one force most able and willing to turn Afghanistan into a terrorist safe haven once again.'
The attack on Mansour was deemed justified because he was believed to be plotting to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Mansour was declared Taliban leader in Afghanistan in July 2015, when it emerged that the group's founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had been dead for two years.
That announcement was made by the Afghanistan government, who claimed that there was 'credible information' that he had died in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2013.
Mansour had been Omar's deputy since 2010.
However, his appointment as leader was met with resistance from many top Taliban commanders, who refused to pledge their loyalty, believing that he rigged the hastily organised selection process.
Prior to taking over the country's branch of the Taliban, he was the organization's minister of civil aviation and transportation and was considered 'a prominent member of the Taliban leadership', a now removed document on the U.N. Security Council Sanctions List said, according to CNN.
'He was repatriated to Afghanistan in September 2006 following detention in Pakistan,' it continued.
'He is involved in drug trafficking and was active in the provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika in Afghanistan as of May 2007. He was also the Taliban "Governor" of Kandahar as of May 2007.'
Between 2007 and 2010, he had been the chief of military affairs for a Taliban military council overseeing Afghanistan's Nimruz and Helmand provinces.
[h=3]MULLAH AKHTAR MANSOUR'S RISE TO POWER: A BRIEF BUT BLOODY REIGN[/h]Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour's brief rule, which ended Friday with his death in a drone strike, was marked by mistrust and strife.
Since his takeover of the movement following the announcement last year of founder Mullah Mohammed Omar's death, Mansour has battled other Taliban commanders.
He eventually enlisted the powerful semi-independent faction known as the Haqqani network to cajole important commanders back into the fold and promised positions on the leadership council to entice Omar's family to his side.
So divisive was Mansour's rise to the leadership of the Taliban that at the meeting announcing his ascendancy, several of the movement's top commanders stormed out, according to one Taliban official.
Tayyab Aga, a close ally of Omar's and a former peace negotiator on behalf of the Taliban, refused to swear allegiance to Mansour. In a statement following the announcement that Omar had died two years earlier, Aga accused Mansour of hiding the founder's death in order to secure his power at the helm.
Meanwhile Mansour set about trying to buttress his position, appointing as his vice-president, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network, which is considered by both Afghanistan and the United States as the strength behind the Taliban.
Bringing in the Haqqanis added both manpower and military sophistication to the Taliban operations.
+13
Rise: Mansour was deputy to Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar from 2010 to July 2015, when it emerged Omar had died. Even in December 2015, though, Mansour was featured in Afghan media (pictured)
Mansour also gave Mullah Omar's son and brother positions on the leadership council.
It took several months and bloody battles inside Afghanistan between warring Taliban factions before a semblance of unity was brought to the movement.
Under the guiding hand of Haqqani, several key commanders agreed to support Mansour, but some also made their support conditional - demanding Mansour reveal the circumstances around Mullah Omar's death.
Since the 2001 ousting of Mullah Omar and the Taliban by a US-led military coalition, the Taliban founder was seen only by a handful of followers, including Mansour.
This recently caused some within the movement, including Aga, to speculate that Mansour had intentionally concealed Mullah Omar's death from the movement. Mansour was openly accused by several within the Taliban of manufacturing recordings by Omar and issuing orders using his name.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, Mansour held several positions in the government.
In 1999 when the United Nations imposed wide-ranging sanctions on the movement, Mansour was both aviation minister, trying to keep the national airline operating without spare parts, and military commander in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
Among the Taliban leaders at the time, Mansour was considered among those closest to Mullah Omar and like the Taliban founder, Mansour rarely travelled to Kabul - instead running his aviation ministry from the southern city of Kandahar.
Mansour was a member of Afghanistan's powerful Ishaqzai tribe in Kandahar, the spiritual headquarters of the Taliban. His tribal affiliation speaks to his significance as an ethnic Pashtun, whose members comprise the backbone of the Taliban.
Critics of Mansour also accused him of being close to Pakistan's intelligence agency, known by its acronym ISI.
.
- Afghanistan Taliban leader believed to be dead following US drone strike
- The group has confirmed its boss Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed
- He and a the car's driver were killed by a strike on the border with Pakistan
- Mansour was accused of blocking peace efforts in the war-torn country
- WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
PUBLISHED: 21:48, 21 May 2016 | UPDATED: 15:35, 22 May 2016
Dramatic photographs have emerged of the bodies of Afghan Taliban boss Mullah Akhtar Mansour and his driver after the pair were killed a targeted drone strike authorized by Barack Obama.
The images show two bodies - believed to be that of Mansour and the driver of the car - after they were pulled from vehicle wreckage at the weekend.
However, it is not clear which body is that of Mansour. The images show the badly burned feet of one man, while another body is unidentifiable inside a wooden coffin.
Both the Taliban and the Afghanistan Government have now confirmed his death after he was killed travelling in a remote area of the border with Pakistan.
.
+13
The wreckage of the car carrying Mansour and a driver is pictured still flaming following the drone strike
+13
Little was left of the vehicle after it was decimated in the strike on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
+13
The two bodies (pictured) were held at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, though it was not clear which was purported to be that of Mansour
+13
Mansour had led the Afghan Taliban ever since the death of its founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar
Earlier in the day Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah had said that Mansour was 'more than likely' dead.
Speaking live on television as he chaired a Cabinet meeting, Abdullah said Mansour's death would have a positive impact on attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been waging an insurgency for 15 years.
Mansour was 'the main figure preventing the Taliban joining the peace process', Abdullah said.
.
'From the day he took over the Taliban following the death of Mullah Omar, he intensified violence against ordinary citizens, especially in Afghanistan.'
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Myanmar today, repeatedly referred to Mansour in the past tense.
Mansour, he said 'posed a continuing imminent threat to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians, Afghan security forces' and members of the U.S./NATO coalition.
He said the air strike on Mansour 'sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to stand with our Afghan partners'.
'Peace is what we want, Mansur was a threat to that effort,' Kerry said. 'He also was directly opposed to peace negotiations and to the reconciliation process. It is time for Afghans to stop fighting and to start building a real future together.'
It remains unclear what the role was of the second man killed in the car. The Pentagon initially called him a fellow 'combatant', but officials told AFP he was a civilian who worked for a local rental company.
It isn't the first time Mansour has been attacked: In December, he was reported wounded and maybe killed in a shootout at the house of another Taliban leader near Quetta in Pakistan.
+13
On Saturday the U.S. carried out a drone strike on Mullah Akhtar Mansour (pictured), who had been leader of the Afghanistan Taliban since July 2015. He is now believed to be dead, the Pentagon said
But this time the U.S. took no chances, using multiple drones to attack him.
It has now emerged Mansour had just returned from Iran when the vehicle was struck.
Pakistani ID documents found on the alleged militant leader could shed light on the degree of official support he received in the country.
His passport showed he had left for Iran on March 28 and returned the day he was killed.
'He was returning from Iran when he was hit by a drone strike near the town of Ahmad Wal,' one security official said.
He added that the driver, Muhammad Azim, worked for the Al Habib car rental company based out of Quetta.
An immigration official at the border town of Taftan confirmed the man's travel dates, adding that he was carrying euros when he entered Pakistan which he then converted to Pakistani rupees.
A passport and ID card recovered from the scene, photographs of which were seen by AFP, gave the man's name as Muhammad Wali, a resident of Killa Abdullah district of Baluchistan province who was born on January 1, 1972.
The second address listed on his ID card was in Karachi. The photographs on both documents both closely resemble known photographs of Mullah Mansour.
It was not immediately clear whether the documents were counterfeit or genuine.
The two corpses were later brought to the Civil Hospital in the provincial capital Quetta, where they were handed over to relatives after autopsies.
A hospital source said both were badly burnt and the corpse of the man named as Muhammad Wali was charred beyond recognition.
The source said there was a 'huge difference' between the way the bodies were treated.
'A youth who gave his name as Muhammad Rafiq and said he was the nephew of Muhammad Wali came with some plainclothes intelligence officials and demanded the body be immediately handed over to him.'
'The examination was done in no time and the body was taken away, while no one asked the nephew to prove his ID,' the source added.
+13
Pictures showed the bodies of the two men after they had been killed in the pinpoint U.S. drone strike
+13
The coffin containing the body of one of those killed is loaded into the back of an ambulance in Pakistan
+13
A police officer stands beside a body of one of the two people killed in a US drone in Noshki. It is not clear if it is the body of Mansour, or his driver
+13
A group of men cover a body with blankets after he was killed in the drone strike on the Pakistan side of the border
The strike took place at about 3pm local time on the Pakistani side of a remote area of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to the official.
The drones targeted the men as they rode in a vehicle southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.
Mansour, who has been in charge of the Taliban in Afghanistan since the summer of 2015, was described as 'an obstacle to peace' in the country by Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary, when he announced the man's death.
As the leader of the group - which now holds more Afghanistan territory than at any time since they were ousted from control by a U.S. intervention in 2001 - he forbade Taliban members from engaging in peace talks with the Afghanistan government.
He was also planning attacks against Afghanistan and U.S. forces, Cook claimed.
However, Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told Reuters that even if Mansour is dead the Taliban won't go straight to the negotiating table.
'The Taliban won't simply meekly agree to talks and especially as this strike could worsen the fragmentation within the organization,' he said.
And Andrew Wilder, a senior analyst at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, told The Washington Post Mansour's death could galvanize the Taliban to prove it can still fight back.
'No one in the Taliban ranks is going to seriously be talking about pushing the peace talks further,' he said.
And it's not known whether Mansour's deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, will be accepted as the new leader, given that Mansour only made it to the top after some vicious infighting.
And with no clear successor, Mansour's death 'will provoke a crisis inside the Taliban', Bruce Riedel, an Afghanistan expert at the Brookings Institution think-tank, told Reuters.
That could lead to their guerrilla operations being compromised over the summer.
+13
Location: Mansour was attacked southwest of Ahmad Wal, on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Another person was killed with him
+13
Obstacle: Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary, said Mansour was 'an obstacle to peace' in the country. Mansour's death could take days to confirm, an unnamed source said
Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary said Saturday: 'Today, the Department of Defense conducted an airstrike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mansur in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
'Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and Coalition partners.
'We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available.'
He continued: 'Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour's assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous U.S. and Coalition personnel.'
The announcement was met with approval by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate's more hawkish Republicans, CNN reported.
'I'm glad to hear we decided to bring the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, to justice,' Graham said. 'I appreciate President Obama for authorizing the attack. And job-well-done to the members of our military and intelligence communities who carried out the mission.'
However, he asked Obama not to remove ground troops from the country 'until conditions on the ground permit their withdrawal'.
+13
Policy: Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr., Afghanistan's new U.S. commander (pictured) is now reviewing policy. Senator John McCain hopes the strike against Mansour signals an increased focus on the Taliban
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John W. Nicholson, Jr., is currently reviewing U.S. strategy, including possibly reducing the number of U.S. forces or implementing broader powers to target insurgents.
Under present policy, the U.S. will only target Taliban members in three circumstances: when U.S. or coalition forces are threatened, when the Taliban is believed to be providing direct help to Al-Qaeda, or when the Taliban poses a strategic threat to Afghan forces.
That's a policy that U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hopes will change after the attack on Mansour.
'Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001 - to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists,' McCain said.
Predecessor: Mullah Mohammad Omar (pictured) was the Afghanistan Taliban leader before Mansour, who was his deputy. Mansour took over in 2015, after it emerged Omar had died two years earlier
'The Taliban remains allied with these terrorists, including al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, and it is the one force most able and willing to turn Afghanistan into a terrorist safe haven once again.'
The attack on Mansour was deemed justified because he was believed to be plotting to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Mansour was declared Taliban leader in Afghanistan in July 2015, when it emerged that the group's founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had been dead for two years.
That announcement was made by the Afghanistan government, who claimed that there was 'credible information' that he had died in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2013.
Mansour had been Omar's deputy since 2010.
However, his appointment as leader was met with resistance from many top Taliban commanders, who refused to pledge their loyalty, believing that he rigged the hastily organised selection process.
Prior to taking over the country's branch of the Taliban, he was the organization's minister of civil aviation and transportation and was considered 'a prominent member of the Taliban leadership', a now removed document on the U.N. Security Council Sanctions List said, according to CNN.
'He was repatriated to Afghanistan in September 2006 following detention in Pakistan,' it continued.
'He is involved in drug trafficking and was active in the provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika in Afghanistan as of May 2007. He was also the Taliban "Governor" of Kandahar as of May 2007.'
Between 2007 and 2010, he had been the chief of military affairs for a Taliban military council overseeing Afghanistan's Nimruz and Helmand provinces.
[h=3]MULLAH AKHTAR MANSOUR'S RISE TO POWER: A BRIEF BUT BLOODY REIGN[/h]Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour's brief rule, which ended Friday with his death in a drone strike, was marked by mistrust and strife.
Since his takeover of the movement following the announcement last year of founder Mullah Mohammed Omar's death, Mansour has battled other Taliban commanders.
He eventually enlisted the powerful semi-independent faction known as the Haqqani network to cajole important commanders back into the fold and promised positions on the leadership council to entice Omar's family to his side.
So divisive was Mansour's rise to the leadership of the Taliban that at the meeting announcing his ascendancy, several of the movement's top commanders stormed out, according to one Taliban official.
Tayyab Aga, a close ally of Omar's and a former peace negotiator on behalf of the Taliban, refused to swear allegiance to Mansour. In a statement following the announcement that Omar had died two years earlier, Aga accused Mansour of hiding the founder's death in order to secure his power at the helm.
Meanwhile Mansour set about trying to buttress his position, appointing as his vice-president, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network, which is considered by both Afghanistan and the United States as the strength behind the Taliban.
Bringing in the Haqqanis added both manpower and military sophistication to the Taliban operations.
+13
Rise: Mansour was deputy to Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar from 2010 to July 2015, when it emerged Omar had died. Even in December 2015, though, Mansour was featured in Afghan media (pictured)
Mansour also gave Mullah Omar's son and brother positions on the leadership council.
It took several months and bloody battles inside Afghanistan between warring Taliban factions before a semblance of unity was brought to the movement.
Under the guiding hand of Haqqani, several key commanders agreed to support Mansour, but some also made their support conditional - demanding Mansour reveal the circumstances around Mullah Omar's death.
Since the 2001 ousting of Mullah Omar and the Taliban by a US-led military coalition, the Taliban founder was seen only by a handful of followers, including Mansour.
This recently caused some within the movement, including Aga, to speculate that Mansour had intentionally concealed Mullah Omar's death from the movement. Mansour was openly accused by several within the Taliban of manufacturing recordings by Omar and issuing orders using his name.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, Mansour held several positions in the government.
In 1999 when the United Nations imposed wide-ranging sanctions on the movement, Mansour was both aviation minister, trying to keep the national airline operating without spare parts, and military commander in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
Among the Taliban leaders at the time, Mansour was considered among those closest to Mullah Omar and like the Taliban founder, Mansour rarely travelled to Kabul - instead running his aviation ministry from the southern city of Kandahar.
Mansour was a member of Afghanistan's powerful Ishaqzai tribe in Kandahar, the spiritual headquarters of the Taliban. His tribal affiliation speaks to his significance as an ethnic Pashtun, whose members comprise the backbone of the Taliban.
Critics of Mansour also accused him of being close to Pakistan's intelligence agency, known by its acronym ISI.
.
[h=1]ISIS leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan killed in US drone strike[/h]
PUBLISHED: 22:31, 12 August 2016 | UPDATED: 03:02, 13 August 2016
The Islamic State group's leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, was killed last month in an airstrike in Nangarhar province, the Pentagon said Friday.
Saeed was named head of ISIS's 'Khorasan province,' which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighboring countries, early last year when a group of Pakistani Taliban switched allegiance to the jihadist group.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Gordon Trowbridge said the strike came while US and Afghan special operations forces carried out counter-ISIS operations in southern Nangarhar province throughout July.
+2
The Islamic State group's leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, was killed in July in a strike in the border region between the two countries, a US defense official says
'During this time, US forces conducted an airstrike targeting Hafiz Saeed Khan, the Islamic State in the Levant-Khorasan emir, in Achin district, Nangarhar province July 26, resulting in his death,' Trowbridge said.
Saeed 'was known to directly participate in attacks against US and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorized Afghans, especially in Nangarhar,' he added.
Details of the strike were not immediately available, but a US official told the BBC that Saeed was killed by drone.
The death of Saeed represents a major setback for ISIS as it tries to establish itself as a serious force in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Afghan authorities erroneously believed Saeed had been killed in another strike in July 2015, when a US drone targeted dozens of ISIS-linked cadres in restive Nangarhar province, close to the Pakistani border.
That attack came less than six months after another strike in Afghanistan killed Abdul Rauf Khadim, who was thought to be the ISIS number two in the country.
+2
Map of Afghanistan locating death of the Islamic State group's regional leader in Kot district, Nangarhar province
Some Afghan Taliban members have defected to the jihadist group, with insurgents apparently adopting the black ISIS flag to rebrand themselves as a more lethal force.
Most NATO combat troops who had been fighting the Taliban and other insurgent groups have now left Afghanistan, with responsibility for the country's security switching to local forces.
The Afghan troops, however, still rely on US air support and training and have struggled to stem frequent Taliban offensives.
The former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike inside Pakistan in May.
Both the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State jihadists have claimed responsibility for a horrific suicide bombing on Monday at a hospital in Pakistan which killed 73 people.
The IS group has also claimed responsibility for a July 23 attack in Kabul that killed dozens of people and left hundreds maimed.
ISIS has been trying to expand its presence beyond its so-called 'caliphate' in Iraq and Syria, where tens of thousands of jihadists have been killed in air strikes and offensives, but has made only limited progress.
- The Islamic State group's leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, was killed last month in an airstrike
- Saeed was head of ISIS's 'Khorasan province,' which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighboring countries
- He was likely killed by drone
PUBLISHED: 22:31, 12 August 2016 | UPDATED: 03:02, 13 August 2016
The Islamic State group's leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, was killed last month in an airstrike in Nangarhar province, the Pentagon said Friday.
Saeed was named head of ISIS's 'Khorasan province,' which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighboring countries, early last year when a group of Pakistani Taliban switched allegiance to the jihadist group.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Gordon Trowbridge said the strike came while US and Afghan special operations forces carried out counter-ISIS operations in southern Nangarhar province throughout July.
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The Islamic State group's leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, was killed in July in a strike in the border region between the two countries, a US defense official says
'During this time, US forces conducted an airstrike targeting Hafiz Saeed Khan, the Islamic State in the Levant-Khorasan emir, in Achin district, Nangarhar province July 26, resulting in his death,' Trowbridge said.
Saeed 'was known to directly participate in attacks against US and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorized Afghans, especially in Nangarhar,' he added.
Details of the strike were not immediately available, but a US official told the BBC that Saeed was killed by drone.
The death of Saeed represents a major setback for ISIS as it tries to establish itself as a serious force in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Afghan authorities erroneously believed Saeed had been killed in another strike in July 2015, when a US drone targeted dozens of ISIS-linked cadres in restive Nangarhar province, close to the Pakistani border.
That attack came less than six months after another strike in Afghanistan killed Abdul Rauf Khadim, who was thought to be the ISIS number two in the country.
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Map of Afghanistan locating death of the Islamic State group's regional leader in Kot district, Nangarhar province
Some Afghan Taliban members have defected to the jihadist group, with insurgents apparently adopting the black ISIS flag to rebrand themselves as a more lethal force.
Most NATO combat troops who had been fighting the Taliban and other insurgent groups have now left Afghanistan, with responsibility for the country's security switching to local forces.
The Afghan troops, however, still rely on US air support and training and have struggled to stem frequent Taliban offensives.
The former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike inside Pakistan in May.
Both the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State jihadists have claimed responsibility for a horrific suicide bombing on Monday at a hospital in Pakistan which killed 73 people.
The IS group has also claimed responsibility for a July 23 attack in Kabul that killed dozens of people and left hundreds maimed.
ISIS has been trying to expand its presence beyond its so-called 'caliphate' in Iraq and Syria, where tens of thousands of jihadists have been killed in air strikes and offensives, but has made only limited progress.
[h=1]Coalition Strike Kills Senior ISIL Leader[/h][FONT="]DoD News, Defense Media Activity[/FONT]
[FONT="]WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2016 — A Sept. 7 coalition precision strike near Raqqah, Syria, targeted and killed "Dr. Wa'il," also known as Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, one of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's most-senior leaders, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement issued today.
The deceased terrorist had operated as the minister of information for the terror organization and was a prominent member of its Senior Shura Council -- ISIL's leadership group, Cook said.
ISIL Propagandist
Wa'il oversaw ISIL's production of terrorist propaganda videos showing torture and executions, the press secretary said.
Cook said Wa’il was a close associate of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the ISIL spokesman and leader who plotted and inspired external terror attacks. Al-Adnani was successfully struck and killed by coalition forces Aug. 30.
The removal of ISIL's senior leaders degrades its ability to retain territory, and its ability to plan, finance, and direct attacks inside and outside of the region, Cook said.
“We will continue to work with our coalition partners to build momentum in the campaign to deal ISIL a lasting defeat,” the press secretary said.
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[FONT="]WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2016 — A Sept. 7 coalition precision strike near Raqqah, Syria, targeted and killed "Dr. Wa'il," also known as Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, one of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's most-senior leaders, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement issued today.
The deceased terrorist had operated as the minister of information for the terror organization and was a prominent member of its Senior Shura Council -- ISIL's leadership group, Cook said.
ISIL Propagandist
Wa'il oversaw ISIL's production of terrorist propaganda videos showing torture and executions, the press secretary said.
Cook said Wa’il was a close associate of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the ISIL spokesman and leader who plotted and inspired external terror attacks. Al-Adnani was successfully struck and killed by coalition forces Aug. 30.
The removal of ISIL's senior leaders degrades its ability to retain territory, and its ability to plan, finance, and direct attacks inside and outside of the region, Cook said.
“We will continue to work with our coalition partners to build momentum in the campaign to deal ISIL a lasting defeat,” the press secretary said.
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[h=1]ISIS 'information minister' killed in US-coalition airstrike: Senior figure behind torture and execution videos slain in terror group's de-facto capital[/h]
PUBLISHED: 21:41, 16 September 2016 | UPDATED: 05:12, 17 September 2016
The Pentagon said on Friday that a U.S.-led coalition air strike on September 7 killed an Islamic State leader who oversaw the militant group's propaganda.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement that the air strike took place near Raqqa, Syria, and targeted and killed Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, also known as Dr. Wa'il.
Islamic State controls parts of Iraq and Syria and has broadcast its beheadings of journalists and aid workers over the past few years.
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Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, also known as Dr. Wa'il has been reported killed in a drone strike. He was responsible for creating many of ISIS's videos
The group has sympathizers in several countries who have carried out bombings and shootings of civilians.
The Pentagon said Wa'il was minister of information and prominent member of Islamic State's Senior Shura Council, or leadership group.
A U.S. Defense Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wa'il was targeted by the air strike while he was on a motorcycle outside his house.
'Wa'il oversaw ISIL's production of terrorist propaganda videos showing torture and executions,' Cook said in the statement, using an acronym for the group.
'He was a close associate of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the ISIL spokesman and leader for plotting and inspiring external terror attacks.'
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Abu Mohammed al-Adnani was reported killed on August 30th. Now coalition forces have killed another of ISIS's leaders
The strike took out one of the very limited number of ISIS leaders who had 'direct access' to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, according to a US official.
Cook called Salman one of the 'most senior leaders' in ISIS.
'He operated as the minister of Information for the terror organization and was a prominent member of its Senior Shura Council -- ISIL's leadership group,' Cook added.
'The removal of ISIL's senior leaders degrades its ability to retain territory, and its ability to plan, finance and direct attacks inside and outside of the region,' Cook said.
'Baghdadi's inner circle was already small, and it's getting smaller,' an official told CNN.
Salman is assessed to have been one of the five most-senior officials in ISIS before he and Adnani were killed.
On August 30, Islamic State said Adnani was killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, which was later confirmed by the Pentagon.
On Friday, the Pentagon acknowledged that U.S. special operation forces are accompanying Turkish and vetted Syrian opposition forces battling Islamic State in and around the area of the Syrian border near al-Rai and the town of Jarablus, further east.
Read more:
- US defense official says drone strike targeted new ISIS official in charge of media and propaganda
- The strike comes weeks after the US confirmed it had killed ISIS' spokesman
PUBLISHED: 21:41, 16 September 2016 | UPDATED: 05:12, 17 September 2016
The Pentagon said on Friday that a U.S.-led coalition air strike on September 7 killed an Islamic State leader who oversaw the militant group's propaganda.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement that the air strike took place near Raqqa, Syria, and targeted and killed Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, also known as Dr. Wa'il.
Islamic State controls parts of Iraq and Syria and has broadcast its beheadings of journalists and aid workers over the past few years.
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Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, also known as Dr. Wa'il has been reported killed in a drone strike. He was responsible for creating many of ISIS's videos
The group has sympathizers in several countries who have carried out bombings and shootings of civilians.
The Pentagon said Wa'il was minister of information and prominent member of Islamic State's Senior Shura Council, or leadership group.
A U.S. Defense Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wa'il was targeted by the air strike while he was on a motorcycle outside his house.
'Wa'il oversaw ISIL's production of terrorist propaganda videos showing torture and executions,' Cook said in the statement, using an acronym for the group.
'He was a close associate of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the ISIL spokesman and leader for plotting and inspiring external terror attacks.'
+2
Abu Mohammed al-Adnani was reported killed on August 30th. Now coalition forces have killed another of ISIS's leaders
The strike took out one of the very limited number of ISIS leaders who had 'direct access' to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, according to a US official.
Cook called Salman one of the 'most senior leaders' in ISIS.
'He operated as the minister of Information for the terror organization and was a prominent member of its Senior Shura Council -- ISIL's leadership group,' Cook added.
'The removal of ISIL's senior leaders degrades its ability to retain territory, and its ability to plan, finance and direct attacks inside and outside of the region,' Cook said.
'Baghdadi's inner circle was already small, and it's getting smaller,' an official told CNN.
Salman is assessed to have been one of the five most-senior officials in ISIS before he and Adnani were killed.
On August 30, Islamic State said Adnani was killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, which was later confirmed by the Pentagon.
On Friday, the Pentagon acknowledged that U.S. special operation forces are accompanying Turkish and vetted Syrian opposition forces battling Islamic State in and around the area of the Syrian border near al-Rai and the town of Jarablus, further east.
Read more:
