An article on hard-line Iranian news website Jahan has confirmed for the first time that the recently killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was in Iran before he was killed May 21. While Iranian media had previously confirmed meetings with Taliban officials, the article shows a deeper strategic shift in Iran toward a group it previously helped topple in order to counter the rising threat of the Islamic State (IS) on its eastern border.
According to the article, Mansour was in Iran one week before he was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Mansour had reportedly spent two months in Iran and conducted “various negotiations with different organizations and institutions.”