Top dissident Mullah Zakir pledges allegiance to Mansoor

PESHAWAR (Pajhwok):A senior dissident commander has pledged support to Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the insurgent movement was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir had stayed away from last year’s meeting that elected Mullah Mansoor as successor to Mullah Muhammad Omar, whose death was aounced in August 2015.

According to a Pakistani newspaper,Zakir -- former head of Taliban’s military commission -- pledged allegiance to Mansoor in a hand-written letter. The daily claimed having a copy of the Pashto memo.

“I have declared allegiance to him under Sharia,” The Express Tribune quoted Zakir as saying. Zakir had been removed as Taliban’s military commission chief in 2014 over rifts with Mullah Mansoor.

While promising to follow the new leader’sorders in compliance with Sharia, Zakir recalled his previous reservations were aimed at “improvement of the system and unity of the movement…”

Mansoor had set up a two-member committee that convinced Zakir to shun his aversion to the new leader. In a message to the Taliban leaders this month, Mansoor stressed efforts to woo the dissidents back into the fold.

PAN Monitor/mud