article: "Where is Mullah Omar?" is a question sources say is being increasingly and angrily directed at the commander regarded as the acting head, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. Commander Mansour has long been reported to be fighting off threats to his authority from more hardline Taliban opposed to any peace talks, including Abdul Qayum Zakir. The Taliban are also facing a growing challenge from the still small, but increasingly significant presence of the so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan. Videos have emerged of disgruntled Taliban fighters swearing allegiance to the IS's self-declared Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Iraqi cleric, who also declared a modern day caliphate in areas under IS control in Iraq and Syria, has publicly mocked the religious and political leadership of Mullah Omar. In a Taliban movement said to be founded on a pledge of allegiance to the Amir ul-Mumineen (Commander of the Faithful), Mullah Omar's authority was regarded as a binding force of political and military strength. "I really hope peace talks are concluded before Mullah Omar dies," a former senior Taliban official nervously remarked to me several years ago with unexpected candour about the movement's leader. "When he's gone, it will be much harder to maintain Taliban unity," he admitted with palpable concern. Our conversation, outside Afghanistan, took place at a time when Nato-led forces were killing many mid-level Taliban commanders in their operations in southern Afghanistan. That was raising concern that younger, more radicalised fighters, without a strong allegiance to the Taliban leader, would rise through the ranks and be hard to keep in line. In 2010, when US diplomats first engaged in face-to-face talks with the Taliban through what later became known as the movement's Political Office in the Gulf state of Qatar, they first sought to establish that the Talibs were acting with Mullah Omar's authority. At the time, US diplomats involved in the process told me credible assurances were received that Syed Tayyab Agha, his former personal secretary, had his blessing. That green light was, however, said to be strictly limited to negotiations with the Americans about Taliban prisoners and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan. They eventually resulted in last year's swap of the remaining American soldier in Taliban captivity, Bowe Bergdahl, for five Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay. This year, in the midst of a series of unprecedented informal meetings between the Taliban's Political Office and Afghan government officials, Taliban sources emphasised they still did not have formal authorisation from Mullah Omar to negotiate officially and openly with the Afghan government. That again raised the most salient issue: how to get a ruling from a leader who has not been seen in public since late 2001 when the Taliban movement was ousted in Afghanistan after the attacks of 11 September. Even his recorded messages stopped several years ago. Taliban officials often insisted their leader had to keep an exceptionally low profile because of US efforts to kill or capture him. But he was widely rumoured to be in Pakistan, despite Islamabad's denials. A senior Afghan official told me a few years ago
summary: Whether or not Mullah Omar is dead or alive, his long absence from public view is posing a growing threat to the strength of his splintering Afghan Taliban movement.