The Afghan Taliban's newly appointed leader on Wednesday vowed there would be no return to peace talks with the government, in an audio recording provided by the group days after a U.S. drone killed his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in Pakistan.
"No, no we will not come to any type of peace talks," the man, identified as Haibatullah Akhundzada, said in the recording provided by the Taliban's official spokesman.
Reuters could not independently verify the voice was that of Akhundzada or when it was recorded.
The Afghan Taliban named an Islamic legal scholar who was one of former leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour's deputies to succeed him on Wednesday, after confirming Mansour's death in a U.S. drone strike at the weekend.
Within an hour of the announcement of Haibatullah Akhundzada's appointment, a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a shuttle bus carrying court employees west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing up to 11 people and wounding several others, including children.
The new Taliban leader was named in a United Nations report last year as former chief of the sharia-based justice system during the Taliban's five-year rule over Afghanistan, which ended with their ouster in 2001.
