Afghan gov't assesses reports on likely death of Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor in U.S. drone strike

The government of Afghanistan has begun assessing the reported killing of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor by U.S. military drone strike inside Pakistan, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said Sunday.

Presiding over the meeting of Ministers Council here, Abdullah said that the U.S. officials had informed the Afghan government last night of targeting Mullah Mansoor in a drone strike inside Pakistan and the likely death of Mansoor in the attack.

"Attack on Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor is part of the U.S. campaign against terrorists outside Afghanistan borders and Mansoor likely has been killed in the attack," Abdullah asserted.

Reports on physical elimination of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor if proved true would be a major blow to the Taliban in conducting terrorist activities inside Afghanistan, Abdullah said.

Taliban militants, who had kept the death of their former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar for more than two years in Pakistan, are yet to comment on Mullah Mansoor's fate.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's local Urdu TV channel Samaa reported on Sunday that the U.S. drone strike launched in Pakistan on Saturday (Pakistan time) killed a taxi driver and a passenger, but not Afghan Taliban top leader Mullah Mansoor,

The report said that the bodies of the two killed have been brought to a hospital in Nushki, a district close to Ahmad Wal, a small town in Pakistan's southwest province of Balochistan along the Pak-Afghan border, where the U.S. drones launched a strike on Saturday afternoon.

According to the identity cards collected from the two bodies, the driver's name is Muhammad Azam and the passenger's name is Wali Muhammad, a resident from Chaman, a town sitting on the Pak-Afghan border, said the report, adding that the plate number of the taxi which got hit by the U.S. drone strike is ALL-570. Endit