Mullah Omar goes missing in Pakistan: Afghan spy agency

Elusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has gone missing from his hideout in Pakistan, a spokesman for the Afghan spy agency said Monday, hours after the Taliban rejected reports about their leader's death. Mullah Omar "has disappeared from his location during the last four or five days," Lutfullah Mashal, spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's intelligence service, told a press conference.
"Our sources and senior Taliban commanders have confirmed that they have not been able to contact Mullah Omar so far," Mashal said, adding that the Taliban leader had been living in the western part of Quetta town in Balochistan before disappearing.
Earlier on Monday, the Taliban rejected reports that Mullah Omar had been shot dead in Pakistan, calling it enemy propaganda. Private broadcaster Tolo reported Monday that Mullah Omar was killed as he was en route from Quetta to North Waziristan. "Yes, he was killed," an Afghan intelligence official who did not want to be named also told the German Press Agency dpa.
"We strongly reject the reports," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told dpa by phone from an undisclosed location. "He is in Afghanistan and he is leading the mujahideen." "With these kinds of false claims, the enemy is trying to turn away the focus of the Mujahideen from their Jihadic activities while at the same time trying to boost the morale of invading and its puppet internal forces," he said later in a statement.
"They should realise that the struggle against them is from a proud nation with strong determination who will not be turned away from their goals with mere lies and false propaganda," he said. A Pakistani intelligence official also rejected the reports.
"We have no information that Mullah Omar has been killed," the official who spoke on condition of anonymity said. "There are no indications that any operation by Pakistani or US forces took place recently in the area mentioned by the report."
Shakirullah Shakir, the spokesman for the Pakistani Fidayan militant groups, also denied the report. "(Mullah Omar) is safe and sound and at a secure place." The Tolo report also said that Mullah Omar was transported from Quetta to North Waziristan by general Hamid Gul, the former chief of Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). "Its just pack of lies," Gul told dpa by phone in Pakistan. "You can check me on my residence's landline number. I am here at my home. I have not left the city at least for one week. You can ask my neighbours."