“The Taliban leadership, including the new commander, Mullah Akhundzada, believe military victory is only a matter of time”, said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution expert and former Central Intelligence Agency officer who headed Obama’s first Afghanistan policy review.
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The drone strike targeting Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Saturday was perhaps the most high-profile USA incursion into Pakistan since the 2011 raid to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and sparked a protest by Islamabad that its sovereignty had been violated.
A senior Taleban source familiar with proceedings at the Shura (council) which appointed Akhundzada said he was a unanimous choice, adding the group’s rank and file looked to him as a “spiritual leader” who had taught thousands of students in both Pakistan and Afghanistan over 25 years.
USA drones killed Mansour on Saturday in a remote area in Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan, the first known American assault on a top Afghan Taliban leader on Pakistani soil.
Two Taliban commanders had provided the audio to reporters late on Wednesday, saying it was an official statement.
The selection of Mawlawi Haibatullah is viewed by the Taliban as a way to unite the fracturing movement, regardless of his lack of military experience.
Akhundzada went on to become the group’s “chief justice” after a US-led invasion toppled the Taleban government in 2001.
Both Saedi and Bizhan accuse Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence spy agency of being in cahoots with the Taliban and say that the Taliban’s willingness to negotiate peace depends on how much pressure the U.S. and other countries place on Pakistan.
Asked for the USA reaction to the new leader rejecting a peace deal, spokesman Mark Toner replied, “He has rejected the peace process?”
“They [the foreign forces and Afghan government] should now fasten their seat belts as the attacks will continue and will be stronger than before”, he said.
The Taliban had previously confirmed Mansour’s death to CNN but today’s announcement is the first public statement from the group to affirm the death.
“The new leader is neither a political figure nor a military figure but is known and respected for jurisprudence and legal decisions”.
The Afghan Taliban has also promoted the son of one of its other previous leaders, CNN reported. In an attempt to build pressure on Pakistan to act against the Haqqani group, some USA lawmakers blocked the sale of F-16 fighter jets with US taxpayer funds to Pakistan.
A key commander of one Taliban splinter group, Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, said, “We opposed the new leader and it is not clear how he was appointed”.
Haqqani, who heads a feared network behind a series of deadly bombings in the Afghan capital Kabul in recent years, has a $10 million bounty on his head. It held captured USA soldier Bowe Bergdahl before he was repatriated in a prisoner swap.
Ruttig said the deputies represented the younger, more militant generation of the organization, which the Taliban was likely seeking to better integrate through their appointments.
The statement, confirming Mansour’s death, called on “all Muslims” to enter a three-day period of mourning for the late leader. US and Afghan intelligence agencies had also independently confirmed his death.
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Pakistan, on the other hand, denounced the United States strike as violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity and global laws.
