Mullah Mansour: Family Of Pakistani Taxi Driver Killed Alongside Taliban Leader Says He Was Only Trying To Provide For His Children

The family of a Pakistani taxi driver who died along with Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike has lodged a case with Pakistani police over the attack, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Taliban leader Mullah Mansour was killed May 21 in southwestern Pakistan when he entered the country from Iran. Family members and Pakistani officials say he hailed a taxi at the border and that the driver, Muhammad Azam, had no militant connections. U.S. officials had described the man in the vehicle with the Taliban leader as a combatant.

Azam’s brother, Muhammad Qasim, filed the complaint accusing “unnamed U.S. officials” of terrorism, murder, and damage to property.

“My brother was innocent and very poor. His four children are very young, and he was the family’s sole breadwinner… I seek justice, and legal action against the American entities responsible.”

Mr. Qasim said his brother had picked up a passenger at the border, whose travel documents identified him as Muhammad Wali. He had no idea of who was getting into his vehicle, he said.

#WaliMuhammad who’s killed in US drone strike was actually #MullahMansour? And he had Pakistani passport & CNIC? pic.twitter.com/swNRbVstbT

— Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) May 22, 2016

According to a database maintained by the New America Foundation, a think-tank based in Washington, America has executed over 400 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. The program has drawn plenty of ire, with human right activists complaining about the collateral damage caused by the unmanned aircraft. The Pakistani government has always insisted that attacks on its soil are a violation of its sovereignty. Coincidentally, unlike other strikes, the U.S. government acknowledged the killing of Mullah Mansour by a drone strike.

What message was the U.S. sending Pakistan with the Mullah Mansour drone strike? https://t.co/JrMteeRXPD pic.twitter.com/PQteLpoOSC

— Slate (@Slate) May 24, 2016

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan described the attack as “illegal, unjustified and unacceptable against Pakistan’s independence and sovereignty and completely against the U.N. Charter and international law.” U.S. President Barack Obama said the Taliban leader had consistently “rejected efforts by the Afghan government to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that had taken the lives of innocent Afghan men, women and children.”

The killing of the Taliban leader will again stoke the fire of the stormy relationship that has existed between the U.S. and Pakistan. Secretary of State John Kerry, re-emphasizing what the president had said, stated that Mansour posed a clear and ever present threat to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, civilians, Afghan security forces, and members of the NATO coalition. He said the death of Mansour sent a clear and direct message to the world that the U.S. would continue to stand with Afghanistan.

“Peace is what we want. Mansour was a threat to that effort. He was directly opposed to peace negotiations and to the reconciliation process. It is time for Afghans to stop fighting and to start building a real future together.”

Kerry said the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan were notified about the airstrikes but failed to confirm the exact timing. Sources say the Pakistani government was informed only after the strike had taken place.

However, diplomats and analysts believe that Pakistan agreed to the strike, even though it would never admit it publicly, so as not to draw public outrage or prompt violent attacks by the Taliban inside the country. A Western official admitted that Pakistan always offered itself as a scapegoat to the American government when the political climate was charged or saw anyone as a threat to its political interests.

In 2015, the Taliban began to fight themselves from within after it was revealed that former leader Mullah Omar had been dead for two years and Mansour had been running the militant group in his name only. Mansour had been more bloodthirsty than his predecessor, doubling the campaign of violence within Afghanistan. Unconfirmed reports say Pakistan might have given their blessings to the air strike as an attempt to give peace a chance between Kabul and the Taliban.

[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]