Mullah Dadullah was a respected senior Taliban commander when he split from Mullah Mansour over the revelation this summer that the group’s supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, had been dead for at least two years.

The announcement set off a power struggle, with Mullah Dadullah among the most prominent of those who broke away and accused Mullah Mansour of conspiring with Pakistani intelligence to hide their leader’s death and claim power over the insurgency. Mullah Mansour responded by sending hundreds of Taliban to battle Mullah Dadullah’s forces in Zabul Province, and there has been heavy fighting there for months.

Elders in the Khak-e-Afghan district said that Mullah Dadullah had hidden out there after Taliban forces drove his men into the neighboring district of Arghandab. They said that Taliban fighters discovered him in November after detaining one of his men, who revealed that Mullah Dadullah had been hiding in the home of one of his local commanders, Mullah Abdullah Haqmal.

The Taliban surrounded the house near midnight and demanded that Mullah Dadullah surrender. Instead, he and his men opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, and the battle continued for hours. Finally, the Taliban set off a large bomb, killing everyone inside the house, including Mullah Haqmal and several Uzbek fighters loyal to the Islamic State, the local elders said.

The elders said they were not allowed by the Taliban to dig out the bodies for several days, but were eventually able to bury him in the village of Kala-e-Atish. The Taliban had killed many Uzbek and Islamic State fighters, they said.