{"id":25564,"date":"2016-05-25T02:17:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T02:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/afghan-taliban-says-haibatullah-akhunzada-is-new\/"},"modified":"2016-05-25T02:17:12","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T02:17:12","slug":"afghan-taliban-says-haibatullah-akhunzada-is-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/afghan-taliban-says-haibatullah-akhunzada-is-new\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghan Taliban says Haibatullah Akhunzada is new leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Armed group names Haibatullah Akhunzada as Mullah Mansoor’s successor plus two new deputy leaders.}<\/p>\n

An Afghan Taliban spokesman has confirmed the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the armed group’s leader, in a US drone strike and announced the appointment of Haibatullah Akhunzada as his successor.<\/p>\n

Agencies on Wednesday quoted the Taliban spokesman as saying that Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Yaqub have been appointed as new deputy leaders.<\/p>\n

The announcement followed confirmation on Monday by President Barack Obama that Mansoor was killed in a US strike in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.<\/p>\n

Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s chief executive, said on Twitter on Sunday that Mansoor was dead. Afghanistan’s spy agency also said he had been killed.<\/p>\n

Mansoor was chosen to head the Afghan Taliban last summer after it was announced that the group’s longtime leader Mullah Omar had died two years earlier.<\/p>\n

The Taliban is the most powerful anti-government group in Afghanistan, where an estimated 11,000 civilians were killed or wounded and 5,500 government troops and police officers died last year alone.<\/p>\n

It seized power in 1996 and ruled Afghanistan until it was toppled by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.<\/p>\n

Almost 15 years later, about 13,000 troops from a US-NATO coalition remain in the country, including about 9,800 Americans.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from Kabul, said Akhunzada is a well-known figure in the group.<\/p>\n

“He is not a new man in Taliban leadership; he was the second deputy of Mullah Mansoor,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He is very respected. He’s an old man, definitely older than Mullah Omar, who referred to him [Akhunzada] as his teacher.<\/p>\n

“Akhunzada is from Kandahar, from the Noorzai tribe. It’s a strong tribe among the Taliban leadership. All these things are signals that he might be able to unite the Taliban. That looks like one of the reasons they didn’t choose [Sirajuddin] Haqqani as the leader.”<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Azimy said Akhunzada has held the role of chief justice within the Taliban previously. <\/p>\n

“He was very active and a senior member of the Quetta Shura,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Mullah<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Armed group names Haibatullah Akhunzada as Mullah Mansoor’s successor plus two new deputy leaders.} An Afghan Taliban spokesman has confirmed the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the armed group’s leader, in a US drone strike and announced the appointment of Haibatullah Akhunzada as his successor. Agencies on Wednesday quoted the Taliban spokesman as saying that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25564"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25564"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}