Spokesman Eric Schultz said U.S. intelligence continued to look into the matter.
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Seddiqi told BBC’s Afghan Service that Mullah Omar had died of health problems at a hospital in Pakistan.
Mullah Omar rose to prominence by fighting against Soviet forces in Afghanistan and helped unify multiple competing warlords to lead the Taliban – which means “students” in Pashto – following their defeat.
However, if the reports were credible, it would be a huge blow to the movement of the Taliban who already are facing the heat from two fronts, the new entrant Islamic State and the Afghan government.
Meanwhile earlier today the Afghan government had said that it was investigating these reports of the Taliban leader’s death.
“If we look into our religious regulations, we can find that meetings and even peaceful interactions with the enemies is not prohibited”, Omar said in his message on the eve of Eid, without directly mentioning the July 7 talks in Pakistan.
Wednesday’s reports come just two days before a second round of peace talks between the insurgents and Afghan government representatives, which are expected to take place in Pakistan.
While the Taliban’s day-to-day affairs have been managed by his deputies, everything else has revolved around Mullah Omar’s name.
“Be careful not to be fooled by the enemy’s propaganda”, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement entitled “Attention!!!” “With Omar out of the equation, more are likely to join (ISIS)”.
The government had sufficient information to conclude that Omar died of hepatitis B about two years ago, and his death was kept secret to keep the group together, the source added on condition of anonymity.
Officials in Pakistan have dismissed the report as “speculation”. The elusive, one-eyed Taliban leader was rarely photographed, and many question marks hang over his biography. The piece appeared on a Taliban website.
The source with links to Omar told Yousafzai that one of the senior members of the Shura, Akhtar Muhammad Mansor, was officialy chosen as Omar’s successor years ago by the few members of the Shura were in on the secret. The Taliban eventually swept across the nation.
Omar and Bin Laden were close allies, with the Saudi leader of Al-Qaeda helping to finance the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, the Taliban had released a 5,000 words document, where they claimed that the Afghan leader was “alive and well”. The thousands of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops that remain in Afghanistan are there in a training and support role.
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Criticized for its brutal interpretation of sharia that saw women denied education and work and executions and amputations carried out in public, the Taliban regime ended in late 2001 when the U.S. military launched air attacks to oust it.
