BERLIN — Gen. David Petraeus says reports that a man leading the Taliban side of peace talks with the Afghan government was an impersonator are “not a surprise” because “there was skepticism about one of these all along.”
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday even President Hamid Karzai would not be surprised by the reports.
Petraeus says there has been skepticism “all along, and it may well be that that skepticism was well founded” regarding the identity of one man claiming to be a Taliban leader.
An Afghan close to the negotiations has said that the man, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, who claimed to be one of highest ranking members of the Taliban council leading the insurgency, was a fraud.