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Taliban leader Mullah Omar is dead, says Afghan government Taliban leader Mullah Omar is dead, says Afghan government
(about 2 hours later)
The Afghan government has said that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar died in Pakistan more than two years ago. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, was declared dead by the Afghan government on Wednesday, ending years of fierce speculation over the reclusive figurehead’s whereabouts but raising fresh questions over efforts to negotiate an end to decades of war.
The announcement was based on “credible information”, the president’s spokesman said in an emailed statement on Wednesday, without providing any further details on what the information was. A brief statement from the office of the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said Omar, who had not been seen in public since 2001 and had been reported dead several times before, died two years ago in Pakistan. The announcement – the first of its kind made by the Afghan government – was not confirmed or denied by the Taliban. But the White House described the report as credible last night and, along with Ghani, urged the group to seize the opportunity to pursue peace talks with the Kabul authorities.
Related: Mullah Omar – the evasive ghost who lead the Taliban through secrecyRelated: Mullah Omar – the evasive ghost who lead the Taliban through secrecy
“The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, based on credible information, confirms that Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban died in April 2013 in Pakistan,” the statement said. “They [the Taliban] can accept the government of Afghanistan’s invitation to join a peace process ... or they can choose to continue fighting Afghans and destabilising their own country,” said the White House spokesman Eric Schultz.
“The government of Afghanistan believes that grounds for the Afghan peace talks are more paved now than before, and thus calls on all armed opposition groups to seize the opportunity and join the peace process.” Ghani, who has poured political capital into pursuing negotiations, hailed the news as a breakthrough. “The government of Afghanistan believes that grounds for the Afghan peace talks are more paved now than before,” his office said in a statement, adding that insurgents should “seize the opportunity and join the peace process”.
The White House said it believed the reports of Omar’s death were credible and US intelligence was looking into them. However, some analysts warned that Omar’s disappearance posed a serious risk to the peace process because a bitter or prolonged leadership struggle could fragment a group already riven by internal disputes.
The Taliban has yet to confirm or deny the claims, which follow a week of speculation about the the fate of the insurgent leader. A Pakistani intelligence official, speaking to the Guardian, said they had been aware of Omar’s death since January 2014, based on information received from “close aides” of the militant chief and family members.
Afghanistan’s government was only informed after the recent peace discussions held by representatives of the Taliban and the Kabul government outside the Pakistani capital, he said. “Since we have to reveal it, we are doing so now,” he said. “Omar is dead and this is not something that happened now or in the recent past.”
Related: Dead or alive? The story of the Taliban's missing leader Mohammed OmarRelated: Dead or alive? The story of the Taliban's missing leader Mohammed Omar
Hasib Sediqi, spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency, NDS, said the agency has known for a while that Omar “died suspiciously” in a hospital in Karachi in April 2013. In more than a decade as the official head of an insurgency against the US and its allies, Omar did not release a single video, audio tape or even a signed letter. When in power, he was so elusive that only a few photos and one brief video of him exist, and speculation about his fate had been building in recent months.
“We have been raising this question for the last one-and-a-half years,” he said, “We have intelligence that Mullah Omar is no longer alive. Now we are happy that foreign forces are confirming this as well.” A Pakistani intelligence official told the Guardian on Wednesday he had been aware of the reports of Omar’s death since January 2014, based on information from “close aides” of the militant chief and family members.
Rumours of the Taliban leader’s death have been rife for years. Omar, who was the Taliban’s head of state from 1996, has not been seen in public since the US-led coalition toppled his government in 2001. The Afghan government did not say what killed Omar or where he died, but a spokesman for the spy agency said he died “suspiciously” in a hospital in the port city of Karachi. Pakistan’s Express Tribune said that after years on the battlefield, Omar had finally succumbed to bacteria, dying of tuberculosis, and was buried across the border in Afghanistan.
The reports of Omar’s death come amid deepening divisions within the Taliban. Intelligence analysts had always suspected Omar, like the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had found refuge in Pakistan. But over a decade or so of fighting the Taliban, during which more than 450 British soldiers were killed, neither Afghans nor international allies were able to pinpoint where Omar was hiding.
Recently, some commanders had begun to openly question whether Omar was alive, stirring speculation about who should head the movement. Omar’s death is likely throw the Taliban into a struggle over the succession. While some believe Omar’s demise could clear the way for commanders who back peace talks to push harder for a settlement, others warn the loss of a figurehead also makes the Taliban more vulnerable to splintering at a time when Islamic State are already making inroads.
This week, Pakistani media reported that Omar’s eldest son, 26-year-old Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub, was challenging the movement’s official number two, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, for the leadership. “The movement has been vulnerable to fractures and this tendency would accelerate,” said Borhan Osman, a Kabul-based analyst with expertise in the Taliban who said that he was still hesitant in believing the reports. “It could undermine the unity in major decisions like going to peace talks. If there are some elements in the higher echelons of the Taliban who are trying to form an opposition, rather than just talking about it, they could easily act on it.”
The claims of Omar’s death also come at a time when the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani is trying to restart peace talks with the insurgents. The first attempts at talks have deeply divided the movement, with hardliners determined to push for an all-out military victory. The Taliban leadership this year published a “biography” of Omar – the one-eyed cleric born in the province of Uruzgan in 1962 – in an attempt to stem discontent, emphasising that he was still the rightful leader of the faithful and of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the movement called the country while it was in power.
A senior diplomat closely involved in efforts to bring about a negotiated settlement said the death of Omar could badly damage peace efforts if the movement continued to fracture. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, explicitly renewed a formal pledge of loyalty to Omar in September 2014 in a video announcing the formation of a new affiliate of his organisation in south Asia. If Omar was dead at the time, as the reports claim, it would indicate Zawahiri was unaware or unwilling to disclose it.
In an attempt to stem discontent, the Taliban leadership published a “biography” on Omar in April, emphasising that he was still the rightful leader of the faithful and of the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan, as the movement called the country while it was in power. But the debate about Omar’s health and whereabouts had already stirred speculation about who should head the movement he led since its creation, presiding over the group’s dramatic rise to control of Afghanistan in the 1990s and then its rebirth as a tenacious insurgency. Because the Taliban have only had one leader, there is no proven mechanism to replace him and the struggle over the succession is likely to be a fierce one, with Omar’s eldest son, 26-year-old Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub, reportedly challenging the movement’s official number two, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
Previous reports in 2011 of Omar’s death, which the Taliban rebutted, were started by the Afghan intelligence agency and leaked to national media. There are also several outstanding questions about Omar’s death, with no detail on exactly how or where he died, or where his body was buried – something that may not be revealed for years, his biographer, Bette Dam, said, quoting a senior Taliban official: “You can’t find the grave, the grave is secret”, he told her, after confirming the death.