Afghan Taleban appoint a new leader
KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 25, (RTRS): The Afghan Taleban named an Islamic legal scholar who was one of former leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour’s deputies to succeed him on Wednesday, after confirming Mansour’s death in a US drone strike at the weekend.
Within an hour of the announcement of Haibatullah Akhundzada’s appointment, a Taleban suicide bomber attacked a shuttle bus carrying court employees west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing up to 11 people and wounding several others, including children.
The new Taleban leader was named in a United Nations report last year as former chief of the sharia-based justice system during the Taleban’s five-year rule over Afghanistan, which ended with their ouster in 2001.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of a feared network blamed for many deadly bomb attacks in Kabul in recent years, and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of Taleban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, will serve as deputies.
The announcement, following a meeting of the Taleban’s main shura, or leadership council, ended days of confusion during which the Taleban declined to confirm the death of Mansour in a drone strike in Pakistan on Saturday.
“All the shura members have pledged allegiance to Sheikh Haibatullah in a safe place in Afghanistan,” the statement said. “All people are required to obey the new Emir-al-Momineen (commander of the faithful).”
Akhundzada, believed to be around 60 years of age and a member of the powerful Noorzai tribe, was a close aide to Omar and is from Kandahar, in the south of Afghanistan and the heartland of the Taleban.
An official Taleban account on Twitter posted an undated photograph it said was of Akhundzada, informally known as Mullah Haibatullah, with a white turban and long, greying beard.
The post listed his full title as Emirul-Momineen Shiekh ul Quran, or “commander of the faithful, scholar of the Koran”.
The Taleban movement banned human images for breaching their strict interpretation of Islam when they governed Afghanistan.
Under their rule, women could only appear in public under a heavy veil and accompanied by a male relative, and they were denied a formal education. Public executions were staged and sports banned.
Senior members of the insurgent group had been keenly aware of the need to appoint a candidate who could bring disparate factions together and repair the splits that emerged last year when Mansour was appointed.
“It was much quicker than most people expected, including myself. It shows that the Taleban are keen not to have a new conflict,” said Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
Mansour, a former deputy to Omar named as leader in 2015 after the Taleban announced Omar had died more than two years earlier, faced widespread anger that he had deceived the movement by covering up his predecessor’s death.
However, there was no sign the appointment would lead to any immediate shift in the stance of the Taleban, which under Mansour gained more territory than at any time since being driven from power 2001 and ruled out participating in peace talks with the government.