Is Mullah Omar dead or alive?

Afghan officials say the Taliban leader may be dead, militant group scorns the claim

Is Mullah Omar dead or alive?

Afghan officials say the Taliban leader may be dead, militant group scorns the claim

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has disappeared in the past five days, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, Lutfullah Mashal, said on Monday. Mashal said he "hopes" Omar is dead but cannot confirm it. "Our sources and senior Taliban members confirm that they can't contact him," Mashal said, adding that Omar had been living in Quetta, Pakistan, for 10 years. But the Taliban said that its one-eyed supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar is alive and "living in a safe place," dismissing reports that he was killed in Pakistan two days ago.

Headless? Mullah Omar (circled) is seen in this 1996 photo taken
secretly from a TV screen grab.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman dismissed as "totally" false the report that Omar was shot dead as he was being moved from Quetta to North Waziristan by former ISI chief General Hamid Gul. "We totally deny such reports that get published by our enemies and then other media publish the same baseless reports," Mujahid, was quoted as saying by a New York daily. He urged "our fellow countrymen, Mujahideen and the rest of the Muslims not to believe these intelligence lies and false reports."

A detained Afghan would-be suicide bomber speaks at a newsconf in
Kabul as Mashal looks on. Pics/AFP

Pak denies
Pakistan's Interior Rehman Malik also denied that Omar was dead, saying in a press conference that the claims were "baseless." An official with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force told CNN there was no indication the rumour was true. Former ISI chief Gul also vehemently denied that he was with Omar. Laughing at the reports and calling them completely baseless, he remarked "Am I killed too?" and "Am I speaking to you from heaven?"

General Gul said he was in Rawalpindi two days ago, though it was not clear whether the Afghan security directorate believed he was physically with Omar or was orchestrating the move from elsewhere. "Am I supposed to be transporting him from Quetta to Waziristan? It's nonsense," he said. Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency is thought to have had strong links with the Afghan Taliban over the years.

Osama connection
Omar was a rural Islamic cleric when he became a leader of a group of studentsu00a0-- or "taliban"u00a0-- who took over Afghanistan in the early 1990s and established a hard-line Islamic fundamentalist regime that gave shelter to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network. The US led an invasion of Afghanistan soon after the attacks, toppling Omar's Taliban and sending bin Laden into hiding.

In the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, Omar created the Taliban to overcome what he saw as Afghanistan's descent into a lawlessness landscape dominated by warlords. He set to transform Afghanistan into the purest Islamic state, declaring himself Amir-ul-Momineen, or head of the Muslims. Many Afghansu00a0 were willing to endure the Taliban's excesses in exchange for the relative peace they brought. In building the perfect Islamic state, though, he had little regard for the concerns of the outside world. Public executions and amputations were common and the Taliban's treatment of women attracted much international condemnation because of the hardliner.

One-eyed recluse
The reclusive Omar refused to be photographed or filmed and rarely travelled. Those who had met him said he cast an imposing figureu00a0-- bearded with a black turban and one eye stitched shut; the result of a wound sustained during a gunfight with Soviet troops during their occupation of Afghanistan. He infrequently gave interviews and was thought to have met only two non-Muslims in recent years. But what Omar said passed as law and to challenge him was unknown. The "commander of the faithful," as he had become known, created the Taliban in the early 1990s and was their spiritual guide.

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