Afghan Taliban confirms Mansoor's death, appoints new leader

The Afghan Taliban confirmed the death of leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. airstrike last week and named Haibatullah Akhundzada, the group's chief justice as his replacement.
Akhundzada, a prominent religious scholar and deputy to the killed leader, will head the militant movement, which has been in disarray since its founder, Mullah Omar, was proclaimed dead last summer.
Mansour was killed Saturday in a U.S. airstrike in southwest Pakistan — the first time since the beginning of the Afghan war that the United States had directly targeted a Taliban leader.