Obama hails Taliban chief’s death as "important milestone"

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday, May 23 confirmed Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a U.S. air strike, hailing his death as an "important milestone" in efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, AFP says.

Saturday's bombing raid, the first known American assault on a top Afghan Taliban leader on Pakistani soil, marks a major blow to the militant movement, which saw a new resurgence under Mansour.

"We have removed the leader of an organisation that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and Coalition forces, to wage war against the Afghan people, and align itself with extremist groups like Al-Qaeda," the US president said in a statement.

Senior Taliban sources have also confirmed the killing to AFP, adding that a shura (council) is under way to select a new leader.

Obama, who is on a three day visit to Vietnam, said Mansour had rejected efforts "to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that has taken the lives of countless innocent Afghan men, women and children."

He called on the Taliban's remaining leadership to engage in peace talks as the "only real path" to ending the attritional conflict, AFP says.

Mansour was elevated to the leadership of the Taliban in July 2015 following the revelation that the group's founder Mullah Omar had died two years earlier.

He was killed on Saturday near the town of Ahmad Lal in Pakistan's south western Balochistan province, when missiles fired from a drone struck the car he was travelling in.