So it turns out that Mullah Muhammad Omar, undisputed leader of the Afghan Taliban, died in the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi over two years ago, in early 2013. Rumors of his demise have been common currency among observers of Afghanistan and within the U.S. government, but one after the other, they seemed to have been false. Apparently not.
Denials, accompanied by new policy pronouncements, allegedly from Mullah Omar, were released by the Taliban’s “Quetta Shura” from its “headquarters” in Pakistan. But Mullah Omar’s declarations were never oral. They were all written and attributed by various spokesmen to Mullah Omar, who has almost never met with journalists, never appeared live on radio or television, and for whom only a few very old photographs exist. Read More