Mullah Omar reasserts control of Taliban
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar is reasserting direct control over the militant group, ordering attacks and shuffling field commanders in Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Citing unnamed US officials and insurgents in Afghanistan, the newspaper said this represents a change in strategy because until recently, the conduct of the Taliban's war against the US-led coalition had been left to local commanders.
Omar, who heads a Taliban leadership council called the Quetta "Shura," had been focusing on fundraising, religious guidance and strategic advice to fighters, according to the report.
But since the beginning of the year, Omar has ordered a spate of suicide bombings and assassinations in southern and eastern Afghanistan that presage a bloody phase to come in the Afghan war, the paper said.
Meanwhile, three Afghan soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber rode a motorcycle packed with explosives into a military convoy in Kandahar province on Monday, officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the soldiers as they patrolled the highway that goes through Kandahar's troubled Zhari district to the western city of Herat.
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