[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Talibs group released a photograph of the group’s newly-appointed supreme leader Mawlavi Haibatullah Akhundzada...Deputy to Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour...
No further details have been given regarding the background of Mawlavi Akhundzada who replaced Mullah Akhtar Mansoor 3 days after he was killed in a drone strike.
Meanwhile the former Afghan Intelligence Chief Rahmatullah Nabil has said Mawlavi Akhundzada was a village Mullah and has no military or political experience.
In a Twitter message, Nabil said the newly-appointed Taliban supreme leader is 56-year-old but lacks military and political experience.
He also added that one of his deputies, the 24-year-old Mullah Yaqoob, son of Mullah Mohammad Omar, also lacks military and political experience.
But according to Nabil, his other deputy, the leader of the Haqqani terrorist network, Sirajuddin Haqqani
...son of Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, still titular head of the Haqqani Network....
will be defacto leader of the group.
Earlier experts had warned that the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani would be dangerous for the country amid concerns that the group would further intensify its attacks.
The Taliban group released a statement to confirm the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor and appointment of Mawlavi Akhundzada and his deputies earlier today.
| An Nahar's reporter consulted some experts: |
Believed to be aged in his fifties, he hails from Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar like both his former boss -- Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was killed in a US drone strike on Saturday -- and Taliban founder Mullah Omar, who died in 2013.
Akhundzada went on to become the group's "chief justice" after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban government in 2001. He was a close ally of Mansour and was one of his two deputies.
Akhundzada is not known for his prowess on the battlefield, having preferred a life of religious and legal study. He is said to have issued many of the group's rulings on how Muslims should comply with the Taliban's extreme interpretation of Islam.
According to Rahimullah Yousafzai, considered the region's foremost expert on the Taliban, Akhundzada was away in Pakistan during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan -- unlike Omar and Mansour, who earned reputations as fighters as part of the U.S.-backed mujahideen.
It is unclear whether he will follow Mansour in shunning peace negotiations with the Afghan government. Analysts believe he will be more heavily reliant on his shura (council) than Omar and Mansour and will need to rule by consensus.
In terms of age and seniority, he was second only to Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, whom many sources had believed was in contention for the leadership despite his reported detention by Pakistani authorities.