Summary
November 22, 2010: United States and Afghan officials have stated that a man claiming to be a high-ranking Taliban official and who had been participating in secret meetings with the U.S. and Afghanistan was actually an imposter. The man, posing as a Taliban leader named Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, met with Western and Afghan diplomats including Afghan President Hamid Karzai and recieved a large amount of money.
Since very few people outside the Taliban have ever met Mullah Mansour, NATO and Afghan officials had difficulty verifying his identity. It wasn't until the third meeting that they were able to determine that the man was an imposter.
It's unknown whether the imposter was actually a Taliban agent pretending to negotiate for their own reasons, or simply an opportunistic faker who took the money and ran, or something else.
Source
Game and Story Use
- Sounds like a great caper for an espionage-based campaign: have one of the PC's impersonate a tribal leader with the rest of the group posing as his enterouge. What could go wrong?
- Contrawise, the PC's could be investigating a man claiming to be a Taliban leader. Who is he really?
- This all has an air of the Dreadnought Hoax about it … if in slightly worse taste.