Obama was speaking the day after the militants named Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader, elevating a low-profile religious figure in a swift power transition after the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a United States drone strike.
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A spokesman of the Afghan Taliban confirmed the death of the group’s chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a USA drone strike.
“The new Taliban chief will continue attacks in Afghanistan to prove that the movement has not been weakened despite the killing of their leader”, Ahmad Saidi, a former Afghan diplomat, told DW.
Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who took over after Omar, was killed in a us drone strike in a remote area near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Saturday.
The surprise announcement coincided with a Taliban suicide bombing that targeted court employees near Kabul, killing 11 people in an assault that illustrated the potency of the insurgency despite the change of leadership.
Aziz said Pakistan believes that politically negotiated settlement remains the most viable option for bringing lasting peace to Afghanistan as the military approach has been tried for 15 years and could not achieve the objective.
The Taliban should realise “that they can not win, that the Afghan security forces aided by us are going to be stronger than them and are going to be able to defend the state of Afghanistan and the government of national unity there, and therefore that the alternative to coming across and making peace with the government is their certain defeat on the battlefield”, Carter said on Wednesday in Rhode Island.
Meanwhile, Afghan and USA coalition officials said on condition of anonymity that that in an effort to increase the cracks within the insurgency and push some of its leaders towards peace talks, the Afghan government is providing financial and military support to breakaway factions.
The faction’s leader had made a decision to split from the Taliban after news of the death of Mullah Omar surfaced last summer, citing non-consensus amongst the group in choosing a successor.
The new Taliban leader belongs to the Noorzai tribe and is in his late 50s – although the Taliban claim he is 47 years old – and hails from the Taliban heartland in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar province, according to Agha.
Aziz said that Pakistan also believes that effective border management is vital for checking the infiltrations across long and porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border. “We were not against Mullah Akhtar Mansour but the way he was selected, and yet again they sit together and choose one another”.
“Akhundzada is not popular among the Taliban members and he does not have military experience to lead the group”.
But there was hesitation, as senior Taliban figures chose Akhundzada only after two other candidates were ruled out, said two members of the council who attended the meeting.
His views are regarded as hawkish, and he could be expected to continue in the aggressive footsteps of Mansour.
He was close to Mullah Omar, who consulted with him on religious matters.
Pakistani authorities have been accused both by Kabul and the West of giving shelter and support to some Taliban leaders – an accusation that Islamabad denies. The insurgents have been fighting to overthrow the Kabul government since 2001, when their own Islamic regime was removed by the USA invasion.
Sirajuddin Haqqani and son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, Mullah Yakoub were appointed his deputies.
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On being asked by a reporter that the United States did not warn Pakistan before targeting Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in the Pakistani territory, did it include lack of trust on sensitive issues?
