Taliban supremo Mulla Omar died two years ago in Pakistan, Afghanistan claimed on Wednesday, after unnamed government and militant sources reported the demise of the reclusive warrior-cleric.
Advertisement
“He was very sick in a Karachi hospital and died suspiciously there”, Seddiqi said, without elaborating.
Mullah Omar was seen as a charismatic supreme leader who was directly involved in “jihadi activities”.
“We can confirm that Mullah Omar died two years ago…in Pakistan due to an illness”, a separate official in Afghanistan’s national unity government told AFP.
Officials said they had “credible information” that the wanted terrorist – Afghanistan’s former head of state – died of natural causes in Karachi, Pakistan two years ago.
The statement called on all armed opposition groups to “seize the opportunity and join the peace process”. They have always denied that Mullah Omar was in their country.
Afghanistan said it was investigating reports that Mullah Omar, leader of the militant Taliban movement behind an escalating insurgency, was dead. In September 1996, Kabul fell to the Taliban under Omar’s command, leading Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to recognize their regime the following year.
A Pakistani security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists, had earlier dismissed the reports of Mullah Omar’s death as “speculation” designed to disrupt peace talks.
The Taliban leader is believed to have suffered a shrapnel wound to his right eye in the 1980s.
Tentative peace talks have begun aimed at ending the war, with the Taliban split between those who support dialogue and others who want to continue to fight for power.
Asked to explain the contradiction between reports quoting Omar’s name and insiders’ knowledge that he was long dead, an expert on the Taliban shrugged and said the messages were intended to keep up the spirits of beleaguered Taliban fighters.
A written message purportedly from Omar released earlier in July indicated he also approved of dialogue, but there was no way of independently confirming that the document was genuine.
Advertisement
The fear for politicians in Afghanistan is that now the threat from the Taliban seems to be drawing to a close, new alliances with ISIL could lead to further violence and turmoil in a seemingly lawless country which always seems simmering on the edge of civil war.
