Former Afghan ruler Mullah Omar, a man so reclusive that no one even knows if the handful of putative photographs of him are even authentic, appears to have gone missing over the past several days, according to Afghanistan’s spy agency.
“We can confirm that he has been disappeared from his hideout in Quetta,” the officials insisted. Afghan officials have repeatedly claimed that Omar and other Taliban leadership have been operating with impunity in the Pakistani city as the “Quetta Shura.”
This and a handful of other reports have fueled speculation that Omar may in fact have died or been killed at some point recently. The Taliban has denied those reports, saying that the mullah is alive and well in Afghanistan.
Pakistani intelligence officials likewise disputed the claims of their Afghan counterparts, calling them “nonsense.” Pakistani officials have long insisted that there is no evidence Omar is in their country at all, and that the claims are an invention of the Afghan government to cover up for their failure to track him down domestically.
