The Afghan Taliban rejected as “propaganda” yesterday unsourced media reports that their reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been killed in Pakistan, saying he was alive and in Afghanistan and vowing to continue their insurgency.
Security officials in Pakistan and diplomats, US military commanders and government officials in Afghanistan all cast doubt on reports that Omar, one of the most-wanted men in the world, had been killed while traveling between Quetta and North Waziristan in Pakistan.
“He is in Afghanistan, safe and sound,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location. “We strongly reject these baseless allegations that Mullah Mohammad Omar has been killed. This is the propaganda by the enemy to weaken the morale of fighters.”
A spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said its sources knew that Mullah Omar had been living in the Pakistani town of Quetta in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan, but had recently gone missing.
“We can confirm that he has been disappeared from his hideout in Quetta in Baluchistan for the last four or five days,” NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told a news conference. “We can’t confirm if he is dead or alive.”
The heavily bearded, one-eyed Omar is rarely seen in public.
With a US$10 million US bounty on his head, he fled with the rest of the Afghan Taliban leadership to Quetta after their government was toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. They formed the Quetta shura, or leadership council.
The Taliban were overthrown for refusing to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
Bin Laden was killed by a US Navy SEAL team in a garrison town not far from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, on May 2, ending a search that had dragged on for more than 10 years.
Bin Laden’s killing came as a blow to an already splintered al-Qaeda, but its effect on loosely allied groups like the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban movements has been less clear.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have already vowed to step up attacks as part of their long-awaited spring offensive they call “Operation Badar” — named for a decisive seventh-century Muslim battle — and violence has spiked with a series of assaults on major targets in recent days.
They said the rumors of Mullah Omar’s death would not stop their fighters from continuing attacks.
“The enemy, with these kinds of rumors, is trying to halt the devastating waves of ‘Badar’ operations and is trying to create confusion amongst mujahidin, countrymen and faithful Muslims,” the Taliban said in an e-mailed statement. “Our nation is an intelligent nation, which is aware of the tricks and lies of the devious and cunning enemy.”
A senior Pakistani security official also said he could not confirm media reports, including on Afghanistan’s private TV station TOLO, that Omar had been killed by members of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.
According to one media report, former ISI chief Hamid Gul had been moving Omar from Quetta to North Waziristan when Omar was killed, although Gul denied the report.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the