Al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri pledges allegiance to new Taliban chief

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in an online audio message that surfaced widely on Thursday, pledged allegiance to the new head of the Afghan Taliban in a move that could bolster his accession after the death of the movement’s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.

"We pledge our allegiance ... (to the) commander of the faithful, Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour, may God protect him," said Zawahiri, who is believed to be hiding in a part of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area that is a bastion for armed fighters.

Al Jazeera has been unable to verify the authenticity of the recording, but there is nothing to suggest that it isn’t a genuine Al-Qaeda recording.

Divisions within the Taliban have emerged since the news last month of the death of Omar, who founded the group in the 1990s. His death in 2013 had been kept secret for two years, and it is unclear how many senior Taliban commanders were aware of it.

Taliban source have told Al Jazeera that the movement’s Supreme Council (Shura Council) was not consulted before the appointment of Mansour, a longtime deputy to Omar, as the new leader, causing friction within the group.

Many senior Taliban figures were riled, and Omar's family said earlier this month that it did not endorse the move. Omar's son, Mullah Yaqoub, had been a key rival of Mansoor's for control of the group.

The head of the Taliban's political office, Syed Tayyeb Agha, also resigned just days after the group announced the appointment of a new chief.

Mansoor's position could be shored up by the vote of confidence from Al-Qaeda, which has maintained ties with the Taliban for almost two decades since the tenure of its founder and late leader Osama bin Laden.

"As leader of the Al-Qaeda organization for jihad, I offer our pledge of allegiance, renewing the path of Sheikh Osama and the devoted martyrs in their pledge to the commander of the faithful, the holy warrior Mullah Omar," Zawahiri said.

Reiterating support for the Taliban may also be a tacit rejection of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which split from Al-Qaeda in 2013 and is now its chief rival for funding and recruits. ISIL, which holds a vast territory across Iraq and Syria, has already gained the support of a few Afghan insurgent commanders and operates an affiliate within Afghanistan called the "Khorasan Province."

Al-Qaeda was set up by Arab guerrillas who flocked to Afghanistan to fight Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. It thrived under the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan, before both groups were driven underground by the U.S. invasion that followed Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001.

Al Jazeera and Reuters