Whoa! How do you say "incoming" in Taliban-speak?
Seriously, if this is true we've got to have a real good idea where he is right now. It also raises the question, Why put this out to the press?
"We contacted Mullah Omar by Mullah Mujahid's phone," he said. "But when he (Omar) realised it was not his man, he cut off the phone."
Damn!
Of the towns listed, locations are only available for two, plus obviously "Shakai".
"Spair Kay" is probably Sperkai Nawal Kot, located NW of Torwam, roughly centered in the Shakai Valley along the Torwam-Shkin road before it enters the approach to the first pass north and west of Torwam.
"Khoni Khel" is probably Khan Khel, a small town in an upland area on the western flanks on the next valley north of the Shakai, which guards access to one of the few subsidiary ridges with easy access to the main ridgeline that runs roughly east-west, forming the southeastern barrier to the Shawal Valley itself. This main ridgeline is the dominant terrain feature for the entire area of current operations. Though it is distant from some parts of the AO, its control will be a decisive factor for all operations in the SE quadrant.
Regarding the disclosure of Omar's sat phone data to the press, there is a binary solution set. One, Afghan intel is dirty, since the report quotes them as the source.
Two, Afghan intel wanted this information published.
I tend to favor the second possibility, without drawing a hard conclusion. Before his break with the Taliban (a result of them killing his father) Hamid Karzai had extensive contacts with the Taliban, as he controlled the dominant tribal clan NE of Khandahar, the only clan that had any chance of successfully opposing the Taliban in their early days. The Taliban had to include Karzai or he could have ended their takeover before it even began. This experience gives him a wealth of insight into the Taliban's methods and ways of thinking, and increases the chances that he could devise his current intel forces so as to minimize the chance of Taliban infiltration.
One possible reason for the disclosure is right there in the quoted story. Omar severed the connection as soon as he realized his comms were penetrated. If that happened before the NSA had enough data to establish a fix, then Omar already knows that comms link has been compromised. You'd then publish the data to deny the use of that type link to all of Omar's subordinate commanders. If Omar was using the sat phone to begin with, it is a logical assmuption that that was his preferred communications channel. Denying its use to all then forces them to use a presumably less preferred method, one possibly less secure.
Note that all of the above is sheer speculation, that understanding the vagaries of "spy-vs-spy" requires a firsthand knowlege of all the datapoints available to the person making the decision to disclose the information, and we will never have that level of access, even if we were sleeping in the same tent and dogging his every step. It is just one possibility out of thousands.
Bottom line though, an attempt was made to locate Omar through his sat phone, meaning that we now have a record of all calls made from that unit, and Omar is necessarily on the run, possibly with a reduced or less secure capacity to communicate with his subordinates.
Afghan intelligence officials talk to Mullah Omar
The source is AFP/Dawn and gives more details.