The Taliban yesterday said that Mullah Omar was alive and accused the US of hacking their phones to claim he was dead, as a gunbattle between Afghan police and insurgents killed five.
Militia spokesmen swiftly denied claims their reclusive, one-eyed leader was dead, as written in a text message sent to media from one of their phones.
The message from Zabihullah Mujahid’s phone said: “Leadership council of IEA [Islamic emirate of Afghanistan] announces that Ameer-ul-Mumineen [Mullah Omar] has passed away. May mighty God bless him.”
He later denied sending the message.
“We strongly reject this claim. We are not aware of such news. Americans have hacked our cellphones with advanced technology and sent the message to the media,” Mujahid said.
A second spokesman, Qari Yosuf Ahmadi, also said phones had been hacked.
‘FALSE’
“That’s a false message. The Westerners hacked into our cellphones and sent the message from our numbers to everyone. They want to deceive the Afghan people. It’s wrong. He is not dead and is alive,” Ahmadi said.
Omar is the spiritual leader of the insurgency who presided over the 1996-2001 Taliban regime in Kabul, which was toppled in a US-led invasion for refusing to give up al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.
Violence is at a record high in the fight against the Kabul government and 150,000 US-led foreign troops, and US and Afghan officials are trying to reach out to insurgents to broker a political solution.
Washington has withdrawn 650 of 33,000 US troops due to go home by the end of summer next year, and this week NATO is transferring security control to Afghans in seven areas, part of a countrywide process due to be completed in 2014.
Abdul Wahab Salih, deputy chief of intelligence for Kandahar City, birthplace of the Taliban, said the National Directorate for Security (NDS) had no reports of the Taliban leader’s death.
The reclusive Omar has not appeared in public since 2001.
In May, shortly after US special forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan, the NDS said he had disappeared from his suspected hideout in Pakistan.
GUNBATTLE
In other news, a gunbattle broke out early yesterday in the southern city after Afghan police mounted a raid on a house where at least two insurgents were holed up, leaving three policemen dead.
Eight people, including two other police, were wounded in the firefight that followed a tip-off about the presence of two insurgents in a house in the District 1 area of the city, officials said.
Two insurgents were killed in the raid, including one man that interior ministry spokesman Siddiq Siddiqi said was a well-known deaf Taliban commander. He said the district’s police chief was among the dead.
Kandahar deputy provincial police chief told journalists at the scene that three policemen had been killed.
“We tried to enter the house in the morning and the firefight started and as a result, eight people — six police and two civilians — were injured and three other policemen were martyred,” said Abdullah, who goes by one name.
Local residents said the area had been sealed off by foreign forces and Afghan police late on Tuesday and that shops were unable to open.
Siddiqi said explosive materials, including homemade bombs and other ammunition had been found in the house following the operation.
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