Afghan Taliban name Haibatullah Akhundzada as new leader
May 26, 2016
Taliban Supreme Council has appointed Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader, officially confirming that their former chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike last week. “Haibatullah Akhundzada has been appointed as the new leader of Taliban after a unanimous agreement in the Shura (supreme council)” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Wednesday. Haibatullah previously served as a deputy to Mansour and was a former head of the Taliban’s “judiciary”. On May 21, the US Department of Defense announced in a statement that it had killed Mansour in a drone strike “in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region”.