The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday appointed Khan Said alias Sajna, as their new head.
Said was appointed to the position after a US drone strike on Friday killed their leader Hakimullah Mehsud, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the Qatar-based news agency, the Shura, a consultative body of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, made the appointment.
Mehsud, who the US government had offered a $5m bounty for, was buried late on Friday after his death at a compound in the North Waziristan tribal district, AFP reported.
The killing of the young leader marks a major setback for the TTP, a coalition of factions that has claimed some of the most high-profile insurgent attacks in Pakistan in recent years.
His death also presents a major obstacle to the Pakistan government’s efforts to begin peace talks to end the TTP’s bloody six-year insurgency that has left thousands of soldiers, police and civilians dead.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was expected to send a delegation to begin talks with the militants, after getting the backing of a number of political parties to open dialogue with the TTP last month.
The Taliban’s leadership committee gathered at an undisclosed location on Saturday in the North Waziristan tribal area, said the commanders and officials.
Witnesses in the towns of Mir Ali and Miran Shah reported that Mehsud’s supporters were firing at the drones in anger.
Mehsud was killed in a village outside Miran Shah when multiple missiles slammed into a compound just after a vehicle carrying the militant commander arrived. Four other suspected militants were killed including Mehsud’s cousin, uncle and one of his guards.
He was believed to have been behind a deadly suicide attack at a CIA base in Afghanistan, a failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square and brazen assaults in Pakistan that killed thousands of civilians and members of security forces.