According to the BBC, the pledge to Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was issued by al Qaeda’s media arm al Shabaab, and was Zawahiri’s first message since September 2014.
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Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has released an audio message pledging loyalty to the new head of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who was chosen recently to succeed Mullah Omar.
Al-Zawahiri, who took the reins of the extremist organization after Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid in 2011, is thought to be hiding in a border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He stated his opposition to any regime or organisation, including Muslim ones, that oppose sharia law, which he promised to implement.
Pakistani officials believe that elements in Ghani’s administration who want to disrupt the peace negotiations were behind the leak of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, announced two days before a second round of talks. Mansoor’s appointment as Taliban leader had been questioned by some senior members of the movement, leading to reports of division.
“We can no longer tolerate seeing our people bleeding in a war exported and imposed on us from outside”, he said on Monday.
Sediqi says “special circles of the Pakistani military were behind all those attacks”. This was, however, contested by al-Qaeda’s rival, the Islamic State.
“This is in keeping with their political ideology”.
The Taliban have not revealed when Omar died.
Last week’s triple attacks in Kabul were a game changer for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who had until now been reaching out to both the Taliban and Pakistan.
There was a new round of talks at the beginning of July, which was supposed to have been followed up recently but was postponed indefinitely following the news of Omar’s death.
The attacks followed a change of leadership in the Afghan Taliban and have dashed any hopes of an immediate resumption of peace talks with the government.
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Tayeb Agha said he did so to maintain a “clear conscience”, adding that he would not be involved “in any kind of (Taliban) statements… and will not support any side in the current internal disputes within the Taliban”.
