PESHAWAR // The Taliban have chosen Mullah Omar’s deputy to replace him, two militant commanders said on Thursday, as the group confirmed the supreme leader’s death.
In a statement, the group said that Mullah Omar had died of “sickness”, citing family members. It came a day after the Afghan intelligence agency said that the one-eyed militant had passed away in Pakistan more than two years ago.
Meanwhile, Islamabad said that a fresh round of peace talks between the militants and the Afghan government – planned for Friday in Pakistan – has been postponed.
It said that the Taliban leadership had asked for the postponement “in view of the reports regarding the death of Mullah Omar and the resulting uncertainty”.
Mullah Omar’s deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, was appointed the Taliban’s new leader at a Wednesday night meeting of the movement’s top representatives, many of whom are based in the Pakistani city of Quetta, according to two militant commanders who were present at the shura, or gathering.
“The shura held outside Quetta unanimously elected Mullah Mansour as the new emir of the Taliban,” said one of the commanders.
However, the Taliban’s official spokesman said in a statement early on Thursday that its official team of negotiators based in Doha was “not aware of this process” in Pakistan.
Siraj Haqqani, leader of the powerful Haqqani militant faction, will be a deputy to Mansour, the two commanders present at the Quetta shura added.
Mansour will be only the Taliban’s second supreme leader since Mullah Omar, an elusive figure rarely seen in public, founded the ultraconservative movement in the 1990s.
Mullah Omar had not been seen publicly since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban government in Kabul.
The Taliban statement did not say when he died but that “his health condition deteriorated in the last two weeks” and “not for a single day did he go to Pakistan”.
It said that three days of religious ceremonies would be held “to pray for [his] soul”.
News of his death comes just before Taliban and Afghan officials were due to sit down for a second round of talks aimed at ending the militants’ near 14-year fight against the government in Kabul.
Afghan officials met Taliban cadres earlier this month in Murree – a holiday town in the hills north of Islamabad – for their first face-to-face talks aimed at ending the bloody insurgency.
They had agreed to meet again in the coming weeks, drawing international praise, and Afghan officials pledged to press for a ceasefire in the second round.
But on Thursday the militants distanced themselves from the peace process, casting doubt over its possible effectiveness.
“Media outlets are circulating reports that peace talks will take place very soon ... either in the country of China or Pakistan,” the Taliban said in an English-language statement posted on their website.
“[Our] political office ... [is] not aware of any such process.”
The Pakistani foreign ministry said on Thursday that it “and other friendly countries of Afghanistan hope that the Taliban leadership will stay engaged in the process of peace talks in order to promote a lasting peace in Afghanistan.”
Mansour’s appointment is unlikely to please everyone in the Taliban. Key field commanders have criticised the peace process and vowed to fight for power, rather than negotiate it.
Several have left the movement altogether, pledging allegiance to ISIL in the Middle East and targeting the Taliban itself in a worrying new development.
In a reminder of the threat posed by the Taliban however, the movement this week captured a district in the southern province of Helmand that foreign troops had struggled to secure for years.
District officials said that the Taliban had wrested control of the Now Zad district on Wednesday after two days of fighting.
Residents of the area said that bodies of security personnel and Taliban fighters were lying in the streets after the battle.
The Taliban has taken control of pockets of territory across the country since Nato withdrew most of its forces at the end of 2014, leaving the Afghan army and police to quell the violence. Thousands of people are killed each year.
* Agence France-Presse with additional reporting by Reuters
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Banned items
Dubai Police has also issued a list of banned items at the ground on Sunday. These include:
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Political flags or banners
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Bikes, skateboards or scooters
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Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.
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THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
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Favorite movie: Braveheart
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
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“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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