KABUL Akhtar Mansour ‘was irreconcilable’ and did not want to join the peace process.
The Afghan intelligence agency on Sunday confirmed Mansour had been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
The Pentagon late on Saturday said a US drone targeted Mansour travelling a vehicle in a Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.
Ministry of Defence spokesman Maj. Gen. Dawlat Waziri told a press conference in Kabul that Mansour was irreconcilable and didn’t want to join the peace process with Afghanistan.
The Taliban have not yet commented on the death of their supreme leader death in the US drone strike, but a senior Taliban leader told a foreign news agency that Mansour had been killed.
Waziri, to a question that who would replace Masnour, said it would be a mistake on the part of the Taliban to elect a new leader who would also meet the same fate.
“We welcome the Taliban to join peace process, come to Afghanistan, continue their activities in accordance the Afghanistan Constitution, take part in parliamentary activities, launch social activities here”
He said the Afghan security forces supported the peace process and were ready to face those hell-bent on fighting.”
Waziri said the Afghan security forces were recently strengthened and unabled to defend the country. The security forces over the past 24 hours conducted 19 clearing operations and 87 airstrikes in different areas with positive results, he added.
He said Pakistan should not allow Afghan Taliban to reside there and direct attacks in Afghanistan from there.
sns/ma
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