Pentagon: U.S. airstrike targets Taliban leader

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. conducted an airstrike Saturday against Taliban leader Mullah Mansour, the Pentagon said, and a U.S. official said Mansour was believed to have been killed.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the attack occurred in a remote region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He said the U.S. was studying the results of the attack, leaving Mansour's fate uncertain.

But one U.S. official not authorized to discuss the operation said Mansour and a second male combatant accompanying him in a vehicle probably were killed. This official said the attack was authorized by President Barack Obama.

Cook said Mansour has been "actively involved with planning attacks" across Afghanistan. He called Mansour "an obstacle to peace and reconciliation" between the Taliban and the Afghan government who has barred top Taliban officials from joining peace talks.

Members of Congress lauded the attack. One lawmaker said Mansour's death, if confirmed, would be a blow to the Taliban, though not enough to allow the U.S. to disengage from a conflict that has involved thousands of U.S. troops for nearly 15 years.

"We must remain vigilant and well-resourced in the field and must continue to help create the conditions for a political solution," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was glad Mansour "has met his just end" but urged stepped-up coalition attacks on the Taliban.

"Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001 -- to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists," McCain said.

The U.S. official said the attack was carried out by unmanned aircraft operated by U.S. Special Operations Forces.

The official said the operation occurred about 5 a.m. southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal and caused no collateral damage because it occurred in an isolated region.

Mansour was chosen to take the helm of the Afghan Taliban last summer after the death several years earlier of the organization's founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, became public.

Mullah Omar's longtime deputy, Mansour actually had been the Taliban's de facto leader for years, according to the Afghan government.

His formal ascension was divisive in the Taliban, handing him the challenge of uniting a fractured -- but still lethal -- insurgency that has seen fighters desert for more extreme groups such as the Islamic State.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan according to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law until the group was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Almost 15 years later, there are about 13,000 troops in the country from a U.S.-NATO coalition, including around 9,800 Americans. While they are mostly focused on training and helping Afghan government forces battle the insurgency, about 3,000 of them are conducting counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and the extremist groups al-Qaida and Islamic State.

Mansour is considered close to Pakistani authorities who hosted peace talks last year between the Taliban and Afghan government. His succession widened the internal split between fighters who want to use battlefield gains to strengthen the Taliban's hand in negotiations with Kabul and those who want to continue the insurgency and ultimately overthrow the Afghan government.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 1996 and ruled the country according to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

Mullah Omar was the one-eyed, secretive head of the Taliban, whose group hosted Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaida in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks and then waged an insurgency after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ended the Taliban rule.

It is widely believed that Mullah Omar fled over the border to Pakistan, where he lived under Pakistani protection until his death.

According to the Taliban, as Mullah Omar's deputy, Mansour was effectively running the insurgency for the past three years and is said to have the loyalty of battlefield commanders who have intensified and spread their insurgency against Kabul in recent months.