Terrorism has always been hated by people all over the world. The extreme actions of terrorism at the expense of innocent civilians are not only not the right path to freedom, but on the contrary lead to siege throughout the world.
Such was the case with Omar, the former supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban.
Originally bent on rebelling against foreign enemies and aspiring to build a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan, after his association with bin Laden, his years of struggle were finally in vain, and the entire country fell with it.
Ironically, Omar, who was tragically killed by bin Laden, wanted to avenge the Americans for his "good partner" until his death.
So how did Omar gradually change from a hero who was determined to save the country to a "tyrant without virtue" and lost his power? The story also begins when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan.
A church teacher determined to save the country
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the 20-year-old Omar fled with his family to Uruzgan Province in central Afghanistan.
The Omar family is Muslim and has a strong patriotic spirit. With the encouragement of his parents, Omar, who was still in college at the time, joined the Islamic Revolutionary Jihad, led by Mehmed, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan, against the invasion of the Soviet army.
After joining the army, Omar became a rocket gunner. Just as the so-called country is difficult to produce good generals, the times create heroes. As a rocket gunner, Omar fought heroically. In just over a year, he destroyed many Soviet tanks on the battlefield and became a veritable hero.
With his remarkable achievements, Omar soon became the deputy commander of the Resistance. However, the cost of being a hero is also extremely expensive, and Omar has been injured four times and has lost his right eye. Hence the nickname: "One-Eyed General".
Also in the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden, two years older than Omar, gave up his studies and family business and left his homeland of Saudi Arabia with a group of enthusiastic young people who believe in Islam to go to Afghanistan to participate in the anti-Soviet holy war.
Ten years of war against the Soviet Union have caused many aspiring young people in Afghanistan to die in the war, and very few have survived.
This also makes those "jihadist" fighters who are still alive after experiencing the war feel sorry for each other. It was at this time that Omar and os-laden established a deep friendship.
The year the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, while Omar returned to his hometown to become the principal of an Islamic school.
However, the withdrawal of Soviet troops did not bring peace to Afghanistan. During the fight against the Soviet army, Afghanistan formed many warlord forces and was divided for a long time. Due to the inability of the factions to agree on the distribution of power, civil war between the warlords eventually broke out again.
After two years of civil war, Rabbani's rise to power finally brought about temporary peace in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Rabbani was forced to step down by the warlords two years later due to his own lack of strength, and the situation in Afghanistan has become unstable again.
Returning home, Omar sees the devastated country once again in chaos from the war, and if this continues, the Afghan people will never be at peace. Omar decided to do something for his country.
In August 1994, Omar used his influence to recruit 800 young students at the Islamic School in the Kandahar refugee camp and organized a new armed group, named the Taliban.
The word Taliban means "religious student" in Arabic. Unlike the extremist groups that were later cloaked in horror, the Taliban at that time was definitely a progressive patriotic armed group.
Its slogan, or political platform, is: "Eradicate the warlords, restore peace, rebuild the homeland". Therefore, the Taliban at that time had a certain "advanced nature" and received a positive response from those who had suffered from war throughout Afghanistan.
Because of the Taliban's bravery and discipline, many forces in the South responded positively to join the Taliban after they came into contact with them.
Over the course of more than a year, the Taliban grew from 800 to more than 30,000 men, with a large number of jets, helicopter gunships and hundreds of tanks.
In 1996, with the support of numerous favorable factors and external forces, the Taliban finally seized power in Afghanistan and successfully controlled 90 per cent of the land, including the capital Kabul.
In September of the following year, the Taliban announced the formation of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" and Omar became its supreme leader.
The nascent Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has been recognized by many forces in the Middle East. Major Islamic States such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have recognized the legitimacy of the Taliban regime, with Pakistan having diplomatic relations with the Taliban and sending envoys to each other.
The arrival of the uninvited guest bin Laden
At the same time that Omar ascended to the highest power throne in Afghanistan, his former comrade-in-arms Bin Laden came to Afghanistan with his infamous "al-Qaida" and offered to cooperate with the Taliban.
After bin Laden's arrival, he brought Omar weapons and money and a large amount of supplies, the only requirement being to seek political asylum from the Taliban.
By this time Omar had departed from his original purpose of founding the Taliban and was moving further and further down the path of domination and militancy.
With bin Laden's support, the Taliban did not commit themselves to peace-building, but blindly devoted themselves to the "anti-American" campaign with bin Laden.
In order to bring the Taliban closer to the al-Qaida forces, Omar also married bin Laden's eldest daughter and became a son-in-law with whom he became a son-in-law.
Bin Laden declared to the outside world that he would never betray Omar, while Omar said he would never hand over his father-in-law to the United States or a third party for trial.
Unbeknownst to Omar, the arrival of al-Qaida would not change the situation in Afghanistan, but would lead afghanistan to a deeper catastrophe.
Since the Taliban's nature changed to a terrorist organization, Omar has lived in seclusion, and Omar, who almost never appears in the media, has been hailed as "the world's most mysterious leader."
Terrorist attacks invite disaster
After the outbreak of 9/11 in 2001, bin Laden publicly declared responsibility for the terrorist incident. So the coalition led by the US military launched the "Afghan War" against al-Qaida and the Taliban on October 7 of that year.
The retaliation of the U.S. military was far beyond Omar's imagination. In just a month or so, U.S. forces invaded kabul, the Afghan capital, and the Taliban regime collapsed.
In desperation, Omar could only flee with the remnants of the Taliban to the mountains on the border with Pakistan in southern Afghanistan to continue guerrilla warfare with the US army.
In 2005, after several years of hiding and recuperation, the Taliban gradually recovered. With bin Laden's assistance, the Taliban began a counter-offensive against NATO forces and the new Afghan government. At this time, the Taliban even had the ability to launch air strikes on NATO military strongholds.
Soon, the Taliban made it impossible for the U.S. and NATO forces to find the north, forcing then-U.S. President Barack Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan.
But even so, all of Afghanistan, with the exception of a few large cities and U.S. military bases, has fallen into the hands of the Taliban. Karzai, then president of Afghanistan, was even jokingly called the "mayor of Kabul."
In order to ease the situation, the new Afghan government at the time made a request for peace talks. But Omar, who is accustomed to the tricks of the US military, naturally will not agree.
Omar offered the terms of the peace talks on the premise of the withdrawal of U.S. and foreign troops from Afghanistan. This was almost impossible for the situation at the time, so the final negotiations did not go as planned.
Omar's life and death are also a mystery after bin Laden's death
When the negotiations failed, the U.S. military launched another military operation. On May 1, 2011, impatient U.S. troops dispatched Navy SEALs to behead Bin Laden, hiding in a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Omar's death greatly irritated Omar, because once bin Laden died, al-Qaida would no longer be sent by him, and a portion of his army, which had better relations with al-Qaida, would be completely reduced to terrorists. In this case, Omar will lose all bargaining chips.
So Omar publicly told the media that he would avenge bin Laden's death to the United States and Pakistan.
Omar's revenge was ultimately not seen, but 21 days after bin Laden's killing, an afghan intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Taliban leader Omar had been killed in Pakistan.
Another local afghan state television station also reported on May 23 that Omar had been killed in Pakistan, but did not say when he was killed.
It was not until the afternoon of the 23rd that an Afghan intelligence official explained at a press conference that Omar had been killed two days earlier and that it was claimed that Omar had been killed by General Hamid Gul of Pakistan.
Contrary to the claims of intelligence officials in Afghanistan's new government, Taliban spokesman Yusuf flatly denied that Omar had been killed, saying that Omar was still alive.
On July 29, the Afghan presidential office issued a brief statement saying: "The government has confirmed, on the basis of credible intelligence, that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar died in Pakistan in April 2013. The statement did not indicate the provenance of its intelligence.
The Taliban confirmed Omar's death about a day after the Afghan government issued a statement, saying "Omar died of illness."
The statement did not mention when Omar died, but said "his health deteriorated in the last two weeks". The statement said a 3-day religious ceremony would be held to "pray for the soul of Omar."
Without Omar and bin Laden, the Taliban are back on their way
One of the main reasons for this is the division within the Taliban.
Since the deaths of bin Laden and Omar, the Taliban have gradually split into Ata and Bata (the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Taliban in Pakistan).
The former is defined as a radical political-military organization in Afghanistan, while the latter remains synonymous with terrorism.
Atta essentially shed the terrorist character of Omar and bin Laden during their lifetimes, and then revived the political ideas of the Taliban when they were first formed.
In 2021, after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Atta forces began a massive counteroffensive and overthrew the government established with the support of U.S. forces.
Judging from some of the actions taken by Atta after taking control of the situation, the Afghan Taliban at this time has gradually shaken off the influence of "fundamentalism".
For example, women can still work in the cities, even helping Taliban soldiers sew clothes to earn money, fighting with an iron fist, committing to restoring law and order and diplomacy, and accepting the appointment of former Afghan President Hamid Karzai to the government.
These acts were largely unthinkable during the Omar period, so there is reason to believe that Omar is no longer alive.
In fact, Omar was very successful in resisting the Soviet army and ending civil unrest. But Omar's fault was not to associate with bin Laden and pursue extremist practices at home.
After Omar came to power, he did not fulfill his promises to restore the economy, restore peace, and rebuild his homeland, but instead issued a series of extremist bans, such as women wearing veils, men strictly forbidden to shave, strictly forbidden idolatry, etc., and eventually lost the hearts of the people.
And the relationship between him and bin Laden is also fraught with corruption and the darkness of the money and power deals. Ostensibly the Taliban opened the situation with the help of bin Laden's activities, but in reality Omar is more like a puppet at the mercy of bin Laden.
Remember that before entering Afghanistan, bin Laden's al-Qaida was already infamous around the world.
Whether it was bin Laden's deprivation of Saudi citizenship in 1994 or his expulsion from Sudan in 1996, everything shows that bin Laden, who practised terrorism, was unwelcome throughout the Arab world.
Osten Bin Laden ostensibly declared allegiance to Omar after entering Afghanistan, but secretly used bribes to constantly co-opt the Taliban's strong hawks.
As a result, hardline forces such as Umar's Defense Minister Dula, Deputy Defense Minister Fazar and senior general Bilader have become bin Laden's "private soldiers".
In this way, Omar's cooperation with bin Laden is simply putting himself and the Afghan people in the hands of the devil. Defeat is naturally justified.
But now, after 20 years of unbearable past events and 20 years of suffering for the Afghan people, the Afghan Taliban have returned from Al-Qaida control.
Although there are still some guerrilla terrorists in Pakistan who fight guerrillas under the banner of the Taliban, it is believed that under the persecution and blows of many forces, Bata will not be able to last long after losing its financial resources.
We only hope that Afghanistan, a country that has endured many wars and disasters, will achieve true peace at an early date.