Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency said Wednesday that the reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been dead for more than two years.
Advertisement
While the group’s fighters have had battlefield success against the Afghan army in the more than two years since Mullah Omar’s death, the confirmation of his demise may prompt a pullback from peace discussions until new leadership is officially in place and internal disputes are resolved.
Abdul Hassib Seddiqi, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, said Wednesday that Mullah Omar died in a hospital in the Pakistani city of Karachi in April 2013.
According to the report, Omar died two years ago from Tuberculosis, but if these claims are true, it means the Taliban published a biography of their supreme leader after he was already dead.
Earlier this month, the Taliban had issued Omar’s message on the eve of Eid in which he had hailed as “legitimate” the July 7 peace talks between his group and the Afghan government aimed at ending 13-year war in Afghanistan.
“Why are they publicising the news now, before the Afghan Taliban peace talks?”
If the news is true, Omar’s death would be an important moment for Afghanistan.
The latest of these statements, from mid-July, expressed support for the peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
The announcement came a day or so before a second round of peace talks had been tentatively scheduled, and uncertainty over the fate of the elusive Omar could deepen Taliban divisions over whether to pursue negotiations and who should replace him.
Omar’s death has been rumored before but never confirmed.
Omar, once a rural Islamic cleric, created the Taliban – the plural of the Pashto word for student – in the 1990s in the wake of the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from the country, aiming to impose Islamic law on Afghanistan and remove foreign influence from the country.
Mullah Omar or his proxies or others speaking in his name, have long called for the reestablishment of the “caliphate” in Afghanistan militants to boycott elections. Omar, who formally holds the title of Amir al-Mu’minin (leader of the faithful), is regarded as a Caliph by the Taliban, and as a source of spiritual guidance.
A man believed to be deputy Afghan Taliban leader Akhtar Muhammad Mansor is seen in an undated photo.
A black and white photo of the one-eyed Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar was one of the most striking images of a decade of the U.S.-led “war on terror”.
Rumors of Mullah Omar’s death have emerged every few years due to his low profile.
“Even if he is dead, that doesn’t affect the Taliban movement”.
Meanwhile, a Voice of America report cites a Taliban spokesman as denying reports of Omar’s death, noting that he is “is very much alive”.
Advertisement
“Be careful not to be fooled by the enemy’s propaganda”, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement entitled “Attention!!!”
