Mulah Mohammad Omar (1960 – April 23, 2013) was the founder and spiritual leader of the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political-military organization in Afghanistan, who served as the supreme leader of the theocratic Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, holding the title of "Emir of the Believers". Omar is a devout Muslim who rarely appears in public, and he is a mysterious figure to the media. At the beginning of his rise to power, he promised to revive Afghanistan, but later ruled Afghanistan with harsh Sharia law.
During his tenure as Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Afghanistan was isolated by the international community and its human rights situation was widely criticized by the international community. On the other hand, he insisted on the asylum of his admired Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida, and repeatedly refused the United Nations requests to extradite bin Laden. After the September 11 incident in 2001, NATO launched the war in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime, and he fled to Afghanistan and the mountains of Pakistan to continue resistance. He is wanted by the U.S. government with a reward of ten million dollars. Omar's whereabouts after the fall of Kandahar are unknown, and the media believe he commanded the Taliban inside Pakistan against the government of Hamid Karzai and troops from NATO.
In July 2015, the Afghan government confirmed that Mohammad Omar had died of tuberculosis on 23 April 2013 in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. The U.S. government also considers this information highly credible. The Taliban first denied the claim and later confirmed his death the next day, but did not release the date of his death, and his public information was different from that announced by the Afghan government. The Taliban's second-in-command, Akhtar Mohammed al-Mansour, succeeded him.
Life
Omar is a Pashtun and was born in the Afghan kingdom of Kandahar province. There are many theories as to his date of birth, some sources claim that he was born between 1955 and 1962, others that he was born in 1950 or 1953, and at the latest 1966. The exact location of his birth is also a mystery, with Kamal Matuddin believing he was born in 1961 in Nodeh, Benjewai district, Kandahar province. There is also information that he was born in the village of the same name in Uruzgan province. The UN Security Council's Taliban sanctions list claims he was born in Nodikh, Dehraoud in Uruzgan province.
Omar was a widow, and his family was extremely poor when he was a child, and he had to make ends meet at a very young age. He later attended a madrasah in Pakistan's Khyber Pashtun province. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, he became a mujahideen, waging a guerrilla war against the troops of the Soviet puppet regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He fought bravely and was wounded four times in battle against the Soviets. In 1986, during a battle on the outskirts of Kabul, Omar lost his right eye. While convalescing, he passed through a madrasah in Quetta, where he met and studied under Abdullah Yusuf Azam, known as the "father of global jihad", and widely disseminated jihadist ideas. Omar later traveled to Karachi to preach, where he met Osama bin Laden.
In 1989, Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, and civil war broke out in Afghanistan. In 1992, the Soviet-installed Najibullah puppet regime collapsed, and Omar returned to Kandahar to set up an Islamic school. In 1994, Omar claimed to have received a dream from Muhammad and decided to revolt in armed insurrection. He gathered students in Islamic schools and refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan to form the famous jihadist group Taliban. Initially, the Taliban numbered only about 30 and were armed with 16 rifles. But the Taliban, which hated corrupt warlords, rescued teenage girls abducted by warlords and garnered widespread popular support, with students from other Islamic schools joining them. By 1995, the Taliban had become a massive force, occupying Herat.
In 1996, the Taliban occupied Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, tortured Najibullah to death, and established a new theocratic regime, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, commonly known as the Taliban regime. Omar was elected Supreme Leader and received the title of "Amir al-mu'minin" (Emir of the Faithful). Omar, who became paramount leader, rarely traveled to the capital, Kabul, and lived in Kandahar for a long time.
The laws of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan are based on Sharia law, and Omar has the authority to issue Islamic orders. The Taliban sought to revive Afghanistan with Islamic values, yet the Taliban were extremely conservative, barring girls from employment and education, numerous human rights violations and widespread international isolation. Omar granted asylum to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, causing strong resentment in the United States and Saudi Arabia for supporting terrorism. Al-Qaida's Afghanistan-based terrorist attack training, the bombing of the United States Embassy in 1998 and the attack on the destroyer USS Cole in 2000, a series of terrorist attacks have attracted the attention of the international community. In 1999 and 2000, the United Nations passed resolutions asking Afghan authorities to extradite bin Laden, but Omar refused. During a 2000 meeting in Kandahar, Omar assured Lu Shulin, China's ambassador to Pakistan, that the Taliban would not "allow any organization to use its territory to engage in any activity against China."
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden
On September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred in various parts of the United States (911 incident). The United States confirmed bin Laden as the mastermind of this series of incidents through investigation, and once again asked Afghanistan to extradite bin Laden, which was rejected by Omar. Since then, NATO, together with the Northern Alliance, has launched a war in Afghanistan and carried out military strikes against the Taliban regime. The United States offered a reward of 10 million dollars for his capture. In November, Omar ordered the abandonment of the capital, Kabul, and fled to the mountains to fight guerrilla warfare, and the Taliban regime collapsed.
Omar is a reticent personality, never appearing in front of the media or at diplomatic events during his tenure as supreme leader, not even a single official photo. He is said to be tall, close to two meters. In December 2001, Omar's home in Kandahar was shelled by United States forces, killing Omar's 10-year-old son and an uncle and fleeing with some remaining Taliban militants and his whereabouts unknown. One said he fled to Pashtun-populated areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to continue directing the confrontation against the pro-American regime in Afghanistan.
Omar has worked with the Haqqani Network, among others, to confront U.S. forces and the Afghan regime. In 2004, Pakistani journalist Mohammad Shehzad successfully interviewed Omar via mobile phone. Omar claimed that bin Laden was still alive and that he was last in contact with bin Laden in the months before the interview. Omar claimed that the Taliban "hunt U.S. troops like pigs."
Although Omar's whereabouts have long been unknown, news about him is frequent. In June 2006, Omar declared Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Iraq's United Jihadist who had been killed by U.S. forces, a martyr. He also claimed that resistance in Afghanistan and Iraq "will not be weakened." In January 2007, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, who had been captured by Afghan government forces, confessed to Afghan authorities that Omar lived under the umbrella of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province. As soon as the news came out, Pakistan flatly denied it.
In November 2009, the Washington Times announced that Omar had moved to Karachi in October with the assistance of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In January 2010, retired Pakistani Brigadier General Amir Sultan Tarar, who had served as an instructor for Omar, declared that Omar planned to break with al-Qaida in order to achieve peace in Afghanistan.
In January 2011, The Washington Times reported that Omar had been admitted to a hospital in Karachi on January 7 for a heart attack. Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Hussein Haqqani, called this "nonsense." On May 23, news reported that Omar had been killed two days earlier by Hamid Gul, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Hamid Gul immediately issued a statement saying it was false. On July 20, Taliban spokesmen Zabiullah Mujahid and Mohammed Yusuf posted messages on their mobile phones that Omar was dead. The two quickly posted messages denying the incident, claiming that their phones, websites and emails had been hacked, and vowing to retaliate against the network operator. In 2012, Omar's email to U.S. President Barack Obama was cracked, revealing that Omar was slightly interested in peace talks.
On July 29, 2015, the Afghan government claimed to have received information from an unnamed former Taliban minister that Omar had died of tuberculosis in April 2013 in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, and was buried near the Afghan border. Some Taliban denied he was dead, others saw it as a propaganda ruse, announcing in Pakistan that they were tearing up the peace deal with the Afghan government. Abdul Hassib Seddiqi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Security Service, declared: "We officially confirm that he is dead. The next day, the Taliban announced that they had learned of Omar's death from Omar's relatives, thus confirming Omar's death. But the Taliban did not release the exact time of his death or the exact place of his death. The Taliban claimed that Omar's health had deteriorated in the two weeks before his death and that Omar had never entered Pakistan for a single day. The Taliban announced that a three-day religious ceremony would be held for Omar.
Omar's aide, Akhtar Mohammed al-Mansour, became the leader of the Taliban and gave his first public speech on August 1. But some Taliban forces do not recognize his leadership. According to intelligence, Omar's son Yaqoob tried to take the leadership of the Taliban but failed. Some commentators believe that Mansour's succession will divide the Taliban.