3. Biodata:
Ibrahim Sadar, a Taliban leader close to Pakistani intelligence agency has been appointed the new military commander of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Sadar was in Pakistani jail and was released from the custody in spring 2014 at the request of the Afghan government. Sadar is believed to be a close ally of Mullah Mansoor, a senior figure close to Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. He succeeds Mullah Abdul Qayum Zakir who was reportedly sidelined after failing to disrupt the elections earlier last month (April 2014). He replaces Mullah Abdul Qayum Zakir, a former U.S. detainee at Guantanamo Bay who was sidelined after the Taliban failed to disrupt the first round of Afghan presidential elections on April 5, 2014. Nobody won an absolute majority at the time, and the two top vote-getters, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former World Bank official Ashraf Ghani, are supposed to contest a runoff sometime in June, the month when the Afghan insurgency traditionally rages at its fiercest.

Sadar was appointed after other Taliban leaders objected to Abdul Manan, a stepbrother of Mullah Omar, becoming the new military chief. Some Western officials said they believed Sadar and Manan would share Mullah Zakir’s duties.

A Taliban field commander in the eastern province of Kunar said he has already seen changes in the way the insurgency operates following Mullah Zakir’s removal. Most of the field commanders have been replaced, he said, and the leadership has dispatched to the field special monitoring groups to reassert central authority.(20140514)