The Drone War Crosses Another Line by Kathy Gilsinan, The Atlantic
Following the death of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour in an American drone strike in Pakistan on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry remarked that “Peace is what we want” in Afghanistan. “Mansour,” he said, “was a threat to that effort.” Confirming Mansour’s death on Monday, President Barack Obama said the Taliban’s chief, who had held the position officially for less than a year, had “rejected efforts by the Afghan government to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that has taken the lives of countless innocent Afghan men, women and children.
The strike that killed Mansour crossed numerous lines that have constrained America’s fight with the Taliban, and its drone war in Pakistan, up to this point. It was remarkable for its location and timing, as well as the public acknowledgment that accompanied it. Mansour was reportedly killed while traveling in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, where much of the Taliban’s leadership has been based since being driven out of Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion in 2001. Yet despite the well-publicized Taliban presence there—the group’s leadership council, the Quetta Shura, is named after the province’s capital city—the U.S. drone war in Pakistan hadn’t targeted the insurgent leadership at its home base prior to Saturday. It has stuck to alleged militants in safe havens in the tribal areas farther north. As Bill Roggio noted in Long War Journal over the weekend, “A strike in Baluchistan is unprecedented.”…