Three senior Taliban told Rooters that Mullah Mohammad Rasoul
...
Leader of a rival faction of the Afghan Taliban. He's probably not long for this world....., who leads a faction that has rejected the authority of the Islamist movement's leader, Mullah Mohammad Mansour, were tossed into the calaboose two weeks ago in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
province on the border between Pakistain and Afghanistan.
Pakistain's Express Tribune newspaper said that Rasoul was being held by Pak authorities. Quoting two unnamed Taliban leaders, the newspaper said Rasoul was held in Pakistain after fleeing Afghanistan following heavy fighting in recent months with forces of Evil loyal to Mansour.
Rasoul's deputy, Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, dismissed the report as "propaganda of our enemies" and two Pak security officials also denied the report.
"Mullah Rasoul is in Afghanistan and leading his fighters," Niazi said. But he added that his group's survival did not depend on one leader.
"Our resistance will not stop with the arrest or killing of Mullah Rasoul or any other leader," Niazi said.
The mixed reports add a further twist to the opaque nature of the leadership of the Taliban, who control or threaten more Afghan territory than at any time since their hard-line government was toppled in 2001.