Headlines
Mullah Omar dead, says Afghanistan; Taliban denies
Kabul, July 29
Reclusive, one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar is dead, an Afghan official said. The Taliban promptly denied it.
An
Afghan official on the condition of anonymity confirmed to Xinhua on
Wednesday about Mullah Omar's death. However, Taliban spokesman
Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the report as baseless, saying Mullah is
"alive".
He died two to three years ago, BBC quoted Afghan government and intelligence sources as saying.
There have been several reports of Mullah Omar's death in the past.
The US had announced a $10 million award for the rebel's capture or death.
Mullah
Omar, who was Afghanistan's de facto head of state when the Taliban was
in power from 1996 to 2001, had earlier disappeared from Pakistan's
Quetta city.
Mullah Omar's Taliban regime in Afghanistan had
sheltered Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the years prior to the
September 11 attack on the US.
That prompted the US to declare
war on the Taliban and overthrow its regime with the help of the
anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters then fled to Pakistan in large numbers to regroup.
Mullah Omar was earlier widely said to be living in hiding in Quetta, a Pakistani city close to the Afghan border.