The Afghan Taliban react to bin Laden's death

As expected, an extremely lukewarm and non-committal statement from the Afghan Taliban. Initial translation here: Replaced initial translation with the official IEA translation:

From one point of view, the Americans did not present sufficient evidence to prove their claim, and from the other point of view, the sources close to Sheikh Usama bin Laden have not announced their position - confirming or denying - what Obama announced about the above-mentioned martyrdom, and therefore, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers discussion about the subject, before the release of an official statement from sources close to the Sheikh, premature.

 

I'm going to write up some longer thoughts later this week probably. Note that given the issues with communicating between the different senior figures (especially since they'll likely be far more cagey at the moment) it'll take a fair amount of time before we see a formal statement that processes the news in any significant way. Maybe we'll even have to wait until Mullah Mohammad Omar's eid letter later this year. More to follow.