{"id":217079,"date":"2016-05-25T16:56:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T16:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=217079"},"modified":"2016-05-25T16:56:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T16:56:05","slug":"afghan-taliban-announce-successor-to-slain-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=217079","title":{"rendered":"Afghan Taliban announce successor to slain leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The Afghan Taliban have announced a new leader to replace Mullah Akhtar Mansour who was killed in a US drone strike.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Taliban acknowledged Mansour&#8217;s death for the first time and named his successor as Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts say it is unlikely the group will change direction under hardline religious scholar Akhundzada.<\/p>\n<p>Last year the Taliban were plunged into turmoil when Mansour replaced the group&#8217;s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.<\/p>\n<p>Mansour was killed in a strike on his car in Pakistan&#8217;s Balochistan province on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Under his stewardship, the Taliban refused to take part in peace talks. Instead, militant attacks escalated and became more daring.<\/p>\n<p>Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, a former head of the Taliban courts, was a deputy leader to Mansour.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hibatullah Akhundzada has been appointed as the new leader of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) after a unanimous agreement in the shura (supreme council), and all the members of shura pledged allegiance to him,&#8221; the Taliban said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>It also said that Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of Mullah Omar, would become a joint deputy head of the movement, alongside current deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani.<\/p>\n<p>Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is much more well known, is leader of the Haqqani network which has been blamed for some of the most violent attacks inside Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The group is known for its daring raids on Western and Afghan targets, particularly in Kabul.<\/p>\n<p>Mansour named Akhundzada as his successor in his will, Taliban sources told AFP, in what may be an attempt to legitimise the transition.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for Afghanistan&#8217;s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, urged the new Taliban leader to join talks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We invite Mula Hibatullah to peace. Political settlement is the only option for the Taliban or new leadership will face the fate of Mansour,&#8221; Javid Faisal tweeted.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/6FC0\/production\/_84580682_013058722-1.jpg\" alt=\"A US wanted poster for Afghan militant Siraj Haqqani\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><br \/>\n<\/span><\/figure>\n<p>In 2015 the Taliban was deeply divided over the selection of Mullah Mansour as the new leader.<\/p>\n<p>But the BBC&#8217;s Sanjoy Majumder in Kabul says the appointment of Akhundzada appears to be uncontroversial. The fact that he comes from the traditional Taliban stronghold of Kandahar is likely to please rank-and-file fighters.<\/p>\n<p>Separately on Wednesday, 10 people were killed and four injured in a suicide attack that hit a bus carrying court employees in Kabul, government officials told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Afghan Taliban have announced a new leader to replace Mullah Akhtar Mansour who was killed in a US drone strike. In a statement, the Taliban acknowledged Mansour&#8217;s death for the first time and named his successor as Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada. Analysts say it is unlikely the group will change direction under hardline religious scholar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":217083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=217079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/217083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=217079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=217079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=217079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}