Where Is Afghan Taliban Leader Mullah Omar?

Taliban Forces Desperate to Hear from Their Absent Leader, Mullah Omar -- Daily Beast

A group of Taliban leaders are challenging those who say they speak for Muhammad Omar, the organization’s absent chief. Ron Moreau reports on the leadership crisis.

Abdul Qayyum Zakir, the Taliban’s abrasive, often brutal, senior military commander, received a summons from the Quetta shura, the insurgency’s ruling council, last December. The shura’s verbal message was brief, blunt, and shocking: Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban’s supreme leader, had decided to remove Zakir from his powerful position and to promote Zakir’s rival and co-equal, Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, to become the insurgency's undisputed number-one military man. The former Guantánamo inmate protested vehemently, saying there was no proof that Omar had sent the message, according to several well-placed Taliban sources. Zakir, and other top Taliban leaders who had received similar messages ousting them in the name of Omar, know that there have been no verifiable communications on paper, by phone, or in audio or video recordings from the so-called Leader of the Faithful, since he disappeared into the Kandahar mountains on the back of a motorcycle in November 2001 as his regime collapsed. Not surprisingly, Zakir flatly refused to comply with the order that demoted him to commander of Kandahar Province. As Zakir wields enormous clout with many insurgent commanders in the field, there was little the council could do to move against him and make its decision stick.

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My Comment: You do not fight a war by hiding in the shadows. Mullah Omar is definitely not running the Taliban .... and if he is alive, he is now acting more as a figurehead and person of legend.

On a side note .... when reading the above Daily Beast article, I was struck on how many ex-Guantanamo detainees are now in senior positions of the Taliban.

Afghan Intelligence: Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Was Killed In Pakistan

File photo of Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Taliban Denies Reports Of Mullah Omar's Death -- L.A. Times

A spokesman says the fugitive Taliban leader is alive in Afghanistan. There is no confirmation of reports by several media outlets that he died in Pakistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A Taliban spokesman on Monday vehemently denied a swirl of rumors that the movement's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had died or been killed.

The spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said by telephone that Omar -- the one-eyed, self-declared "commander of the faithful" who has long been thought to be hiding in Pakistan -- was alive and well in Afghanistan, directing the group's military campaign.

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More News On Rumors That Taliban Leader Mullah Omar has been Killed In Pakistan

Taliban Spokesman Denies Leader Has Been Killed -- New York Times
Taliban leader Mullah Omar killed, Taliban deny -- Xinhuanet
Afghan Intelligence Says It Can’t Confirm Taliban Chief’s Death -- Bloomberg
Taliban spokesman says Mullah Omar alive - Afghan news agency -- Reuters
Afghan Taliban deny reports that Mullah Omar is dead -- Global Post
Report: Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Killed In Pakistan -- RTT News
Is one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar dead? -- NDTV/AP
Taliban leader Omar disappeared: Afghan spy agency -- Xinhuanet

A Dogged Taliban Chief Rebounds, Vexing U.S.

A wanted poster for Mullah Muhammad Omar, who remains largely a mystery. His followers praise his humility and bravery.

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — In late 2001, Mullah Muhammad Omar’s prospects seemed utterly bleak. The ill-educated, one-eyed leader of the Taliban had fled on a motorbike after his fighters were swiftly routed by the Americans invading Afghanistan.

Much of the world celebrated his ouster, and Afghans cheered the return of girls’ education, music and ordinary pleasures outlawed by the grim fundamentalist government.

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My Comment: We will never be able to deal and/or work with such a man. Like Osama Bin laden .... they are both on the same coin but on opposite sides.

The Next Terror Target

Photo: Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in an undated photo. (File/Reuters)

From Brookings:

August 10, 2009 — The apparent death last week of Baitullah Mehsud, the fiery leader of an important wing of the Pakistani Taliban, is a significant blow to the syndicate of terror that is attacking Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Mehsud aspired to become the kingpin of the disparate Pakistani Taliban movement and his death may usher in a period of confusion within the movement. The challenge for the United States is to leverage Mehsud’s death to do more than just weaken the Pakistani Pashtun terrorists but to exploit it to undermine the larger syndicate.

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My Comment: They will get him .... one day.

Taliban Leader Commands All Of His Men To Now Focus On Afghanistan

Mullah Muhammad Omar

Mullah Omar: Focus on US-led Forces -- Military.com

ISLAMABAD -- The leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan has directed Pakistani militants to immediately halt attacks on Pakistani forces and divert their resources to defeat the US-led international forces in Afghanistan, a media report said on Tuesday.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the head of ousted Taliban regime, in a letter addressed to the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leadership and other militant leaders, said that fighting fellow Muslims was not jihad.

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Update: Mulla Omar orders halt to attacks on Pak troops -- International News