Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour has been seriously wounded in Pakistan in a shootout between senior members of the Islamist movement, Taliban sources said on Wednesday, but the group's main spokesman dismissed their report as "baseless".
The conflicting accounts deepen the confusion over the already opaque leadership situation in the Taliban following the death of the movement's founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and cloud prospects for any resumption of stalled peace talks.
Two Taliban commanders said Mansour, whose authority is disputed by rival factions in the Islamist movement, was wounded when fighting broke out over strategic issues in the house of a senior Taliban leader called Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi outside Quetta in western Pakistan.
"During the discussion, some senior people developed differences and they opened fire on each other," one of the commanders said.
He said five senior Taliban members had died on the spot and more than a dozen, including Mullah Mansour, had suffered serious bullet injuries. Mansour was being treated in a private hospital after being hit four times by bullets from an AK-47 assault rifle, the Taliban commander said.
However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the incident ever took place and said Mansour was in Afghanistan.
"This is a rumor which is completely baseless. Akthar Mohammad Mansour is totally fine and nothing has happened to him," he told Reuters.
"This is the act of Afghan intelligence agencies. They spread these rumours about a clash between Taliban leaders. Nothing happened like this even in that area".
The Taliban has faced serious internal divisions since it was confirmed in July that Mullah Omar had actually died two years earlier.
Mansour, Mullah Omar's long-time deputy, was immediately named leader but some sections of the Islamist group quickly rejected his claim, accusing him of covering up Omar's death and saying that Pakistan had steered his appointment.
His grip on the leadership appeared to have been tightened by the capture of the northern city of Kunduz in late September, which insurgents held for several days before government forces could regain control.
UNCERTAINTY
What the latest incident may mean for the Afghan peace process remains unclear for now.
There were varying accounts of exactly what may have happened in the incident, with some sources saying it took place in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar near the border with Pakistan's Balochistan province.
According to the first Taliban commander, the meeting on Tuesday was to discuss the future of any peace talks with the United States and the Kabul government as well as the strategy for dealing with a rival splinter group headed by Mullah Mohammad Rasool Akhund, which rejects Mansour's authority.
A second source said the dispute had broken out over ways of dealing with the rival faction, following heavy fighting in the southeastern province of Zabul last month in which dozens of people were killed.
"We have no access to Mullah Mansour after the incident last night. We have been hearing that he had succumbed to his injuries but we can neither confirm nor deny it," said the second Taliban commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said this week that he was ready to talk to Taliban members but he cautioned that since the death of Mullah Omar there was "no such thing as the Taliban.a There are groups of Taliban..."
According to some officials in the Kabul government, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, a senior commander in the group that opposes Mansour, was killed in last month's fighting, although the claim has been denied by a spokesman for his faction.
