Taliban leader died in Pakistan in 2013
Afghan officials’ announcement may affect peace talks with group’s leaders
KABUL, Afghanistan — After months of speculation, Afghan officials announced Wednesday that they were now certain that the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, died in Pakistan in 2013.
The announcement — first by a National Directorate of Security spokesman, followed by a statement from the Afghan president’s office — came two days before negotiators claiming to represent the Taliban leadership are scheduled to sit down and talk peace with the Afghan government in Pakistan. In recent months, the talks, along with growing confusion and disagreement over Mullah Omar’s status, have proved divisive within the Taliban, leading some commanders to publicly question the group’s leadership or even break away.
“There’s no doubt,” Abdul Haseeb Sediqi, spokesman for the NDS, the Afghan spy agency, said in a phone interview late Wednesday. “We confirm he is dead. He died in April 2013, two years back, in Karachi.”
White House spokesman Eric Schulz said in a briefing that U.S. officials were aware of the reports and found them “credible.” But he stopped short of confirming Mullah Omar’s death, saying, “The intelligence agencies are right now reviewing these reports.” Asked why the United States was just now becoming aware of the Taliban leader’s death after two years, Mr. Schulz said, “I’m just not going to be able to comment on the specifics.”
Some official caution may be understandable: The Afghan spy agency also pronounced Mullah Omar dead in 2011, only to back off those claims later. And a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, on Wednesday told the Voice of America that the new death claims were false.
Even given the growing mystery around him in recent years, Mullah Omar had proved a remarkable unifying figure for the Taliban’s far-flung factions for decades. A respected veteran of the mujahideen fight against the Soviets in the 1980s, he began the Taliban movement with a small band of supporters and students from his madrassa in rural Kandahar province in the early 1990s. Born out of disgust with the corruption and excesses of feuding Afghan warlords, the Taliban rose to conquer the country. It ruled as the government from 1996 until the U.S. invasion in 2001 — and presented a rallying success story for jihadists around the world.
Mullah Omar’s movement quickly became known for harsh justice and a fearsomely rigid enforcement of the most conservative Islamist social mores, staging mass public executions and beating women who did not completely cover themselves in burqas. Within the Taliban, Mullah Omar ruthlessly purged disloyal commanders or would-be defectors, and adamantly refused to talk peace with the Afghan government while foreign military forces remained in the country.
Now, the reports of his death cast further uncertainty over the fate of the current peace talks, which began July 7 with the first official face-to-face meeting between Afghan government and Taliban representatives at a resort in Murree, Pakistan, near Islamabad. Another meeting is set for Friday in Pakistan.
The peace process has proved a divisive issue within the Taliban and has exposed evidence of a power struggle brewing among its leaders.
The insurgents’ official political office, in Doha, Qatar, initially declared that the July meeting was invalid because Taliban officials in Qatar were not present and had not approved it. At the same time, the Taliban’s deputy leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, said he had authorized the talks, suggesting that he carried the imprimatur of Mullah Omar’s leadership.
One senior Afghan government official said Mullah Omar’s death could be good news for the peace process. “He was seen as being among the most hard-line, extremist members of the leadership council of the Quetta Shura,” the Taliban’s central organization, the official said.