Taliban

In an audio statement attributed to the al-Qaida leader, Ayman Al-Zawihiri says he backs the Taliban's Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who was chosen to replace the deceased Mullah Omar.

Irek Hamidullin, 55, a one-time Soviet tank commander in Afghanistan, stayed behind after Moscow's forces were withdrawn in 1988. He went on to mastermind a 2009 attack on an Afghan base.

Sources within the extremist organization confirmed the death of Mullah Omar, who reportedly died in 2013. A gathering of the group's leaders has chosen Mullah Akhtar Mansoor as his successor.

Reports of the death of the Taliban's spiritual leader have swirled in the past and have been unreliable. The Afghan government said according to "credible information," Omar died in Pakistan.

Authorities were eventually able to repel the attack, killing all of the Taliban militants. More than a dozen civilians were hurt in the attack.

The hearing that will decide whether the U.S. Army sergeant accused of desertion will face a court martial has been pushed back from July to September.

There are new suspicions that one of the men released from a U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl last year might be trying to contact Taliban fighters.

While the conflict, which has claimed the lives of some 3,500 U.S. and NATO troops, is formally ending, 13,500 foreign soldiers will remain in support roles.

The operation in tribal North Waziristan involved airstrikes and ground forces, the Pakistan military says.