Questions are mounting in Afghanistan after two senior Taliban leaders – the group’s supreme leader and the new deputy prime minister – have disappeared from public view, prompting speculation over the death of a rival shooting.
The Taliban denied on Tuesday that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was only appointed deputy prime minister last week, had been killed or injured in a clash.
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen claimed that Baradar had issued a voice message to reject the allegations.
“He says it’s a lie and totally unfounded,” Shaheen tweeted.
The Taliban also posted images that allegedly showed Baradar at meetings in the city of Kandahar, but it was not immediately clear when the video was shot.
It follows days of rumors that Baradar supporters had clashed with those of Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the Haqqani network, who has been accused of suicide attacks throughout the war.
He was also reportedly killed in a fight with another Taliban leader to split the ministries of the new government, according to The Guardian.
Speculation about Baradar’s death also comes after rumors about internal cracks in the Taliban just a month after they took control of the country.
The Taliban have repeatedly tried to deny reports of internal division without the group.
It was widely believed that Baradar, the dreaded Taliban co-founder who was nicknamed “Baradar the Butcher”, was the leader of the new Taliban government.
Meanwhile, the supreme leader of the group Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada has not been seen in public since the Taliban took control of Kabul a month ago.
A spokesman denied rumors of his death, The Guardian reports.
Speculation may have been fueled by the Taliban’s own trajectory after hiding for two years the death of the group’s founder, Mullah Omar.
His death was only made public in 2015.