KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) – A senior figure of a breakaway Taliban faction has been killed in battle between rival insurgent groups in southeastern Afghanistan, an Afghan police official said Thursday.
Mullah Mansoor Dadullah was lured into a trap and killed by members of the main Taliban group in the Khak-e-Afghan district of southeastern Zabul province, the provincial deputy police chief Gulam Jelani Farahi said.
Dadullah – who acted as a deputy to the splinter faction’s leader Mullah Mohammad Rasool – was killed late Wednesday, he said.
Farahi’s claim couldn’t be independently confirmed and the breakaway faction did not report it. The area of inter-Taliban fighting is inaccessible to reporters.
However, a Taliban commander in Zabul said that Dadullah was killed by one of his bodyguards “who was working as a spy” for Mansoor.