In brief: New Taliban leader vows to continue unity, insurgency

KABUL, Afghanistan – The new leader of the Afghan Taliban vowed to continue his group’s bloody, nearly 14-year insurgency in an audio message released Saturday, urging his fighters to remain unified after the death of their longtime leader.

The audio message purportedly from Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor also included comments about the Taliban’s nascent peace talks with the Afghan government, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether he supported them or not.

Mansoor took over the Taliban after the group on Thursday confirmed former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died and said they elected Mansoor as his successor. The Afghan government announced Wednesday that the reclusive mullah had been dead since April 2013; the Taliban has remained vague on exactly when Mullah Omar died.

“We should keep our unity, we must be united, our enemy will be happy in our separation,” Mansoor purportedly said in the message. “This is a big responsibility for us. This is not the work of one, two or three people. This is all our responsibility to carry on jihad until we establish the Islamic state.”

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid sent the audio to journalists and others Saturday. The Associated Press could not independently verify the identity of the man speaking in the roughly 30-minute audio clip, though Mujahid is in charge of all communications for the group.

Three bin Laden relatives killed in jet crash, British police say

LONDON – Three relatives of the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were among four people killed when a private jet crashed on landing in southern England, British police confirmed Saturday.

The Hampshire Police force said formal postmortems were still being conducted, but the victims were believed to be “the mother, sister and brother-in-law of the owner of the aircraft, all of whom are from the bin Laden family.” It said all three were Saudi nationals who were visiting Britain on vacation. The plane’s Jordanian pilot also died.

Arab media and NBC News named the relatives as Osama Bin Laden’s stepmother Rajaa Hashim, his sister Sana bin Laden and her husband Zuhair Hashim.