Taliban names new leader, confirming death of Mullah Mansour

On Wednesday, the Afghan Taliban confirmed the death of its leader, Mullah Akthar Mansour, killed in a U.S. drone strike, and named his replacement, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada. The statement was the Taliban's first confirmation of Mansour's death. Akhundzada, a Mansour deputy believed to be 45 to 50 years old, is the former chief of the Taliban courts and is considered more of a religious scholar than military commander; he is responsible for most of the fatwas, or religious edicts, from the Taliban. "Haibatullah Akhundzada has been appointed as the new leader of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) after a unanimous agreement in the shura," or supreme council, the Taliban said, "and all the members of shura pledged allegiance to him."

Akhundzada was not considered a front-runner to replace Mansour, The New York Times reports, especially since another Mansour deputy, Sarajuddin Haqqani, had been running the day-to-day military operations for the Taliban. But the Taliban leaders meeting in Quetta, Pakistan, apparently wanted a lower-profile consensus candidate, recalling that former Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar's reclusiveness kept him alive for many years.

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