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Taliban Designate Successor to Mullah Omar
By Aamir Latif, IOL correspondent in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Nov. 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Mullah Akhtar Usmani, the corps commander of five southern Afghan provinces, has been named the successor to the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in the event of latter's death, Taliban officials told IslamOnline here Monday.
Mullah Akhtar Usmani is considered a close confidante of Omar, as was the late Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, who died of cancer in Peshawar a few months ago.
A native of Kandahar, Akhtar has been teaching in the same religious school where Mullah Omar taught before the emergence of Taliban movement in 1994.
"Mullah Omar is still in Kandahar and leading Taliban forces. But his movement is restricted due to security reasons," a Taliban official said on request of anonymity. "In his absence, Mullah Akhtar Usmani is leading the Taliban forces."
The official said that Omar had chosen Akhtar after consulting with the Taliban's shura, or cabinet. The unanimous decision was in Akhtar's favor.
He added that Akhtar had not been given any official designation in line with Mullah Rabbani, who had been acting as the country's Prime Minister.
"He will remain [and] perform his present duties. He will only lead Taliban in absence of Mullah Omar," the Taliban official said.
Akhtar's appointment raises the possibility of Omar going underground or leaving Kandahar temporarily to an unknown destination.
But in Washington on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected any idea of Omar leaving Kandahar, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"Would we knowingly allow him to get out of Kandahar? The answer is no, we would not," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press briefing.
He said the United States was "not inclined" to negotiate surrenders, in reference to efforts on the ground to negotiate the departure of the Taliban from their last remaining strongholds in Afghanistan - Kandahar in the south and Kunduz in the north.
In his message to the Afghan people last week, Omar vowed that U.S. forces would not arrest him alive.
"They cannot arrest me alive. I will prefer to die instead of surrender," he said.
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