Taliban leader Mullah Omar may be dead, Afghan official says

CNN ^ | 05/23/2011 | CNN WIRE STAFF

[SeekAndFind]

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has disappeared in the past five days, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, Lutfullah Mashal, said Monday.

Mashal said he "hopes" Omar is dead but cannot confirm it.

"Our sources and senior Taliban members confirm that they can't contact him," Mashal said, adding that Omar had been living in Quetta, Pakistan, for 10 years.

The Afghan Taliban forcefully denied reports their leader is dead, dismissing them as "claims and rumors" from the "Kabul stooge regime's intelligence directorate."

"We strongly reject these false claims of the enemy," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement urging "our fellow countrymen, Mujahideen and the rest of the Muslims not to believe these intelligence lies and false reports."

Omar "is alive and well and is leading the Mujahideen in all aspects while living safely with reliance on Allah," he said.

Pakistan's Interior Rehman Malik also denied that Omar was dead, saying in a press conference that the claims were "baseless."

An official with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force told CNN there was no indication the rumor was true.

A former top Pakistani intelligence official called the reports "nonsense" and "disinformation," but then said he had no idea whether the Taliban leader is alive or dead.

"How should I know? I'm not concerned with it," Gen. Hamid Gul said on IBN television.

The original news report suggesting Monday that Omar was dead, by Afghanistan's TOLOnews, quoted NDS spokesman Meshal as saying that Gul was moving him when he was killed.

"Am I supposed to be transporting him from Quetta to Waziristan? It's nonsense," he said by telephone from Islamabad.

[NWFLConservative]

Mine either. I am second generation Irish American, all four a me grandparents stepped raght off a the booat aroond 1900.