Not seen since the fall of the Taliban government nearly 14 years ago, Mullah Omar remains a unifying force even in hiding. His death would represent the end of a chapter for an organization that has gripped the country for more than two decades.U.S. National Counterterrorism Center/Reuters
The Afghan Taliban are being pressed to prove that their leader, Mullah Omar – a militant who has a $10-million bounty on his head and whose movements and whereabouts are shrouded in mystery – is still alive.
On Wednesday, Western media reports quoting an Afghan security official said the Taliban leader had died two years earlier in a hospital in Pakistan.
The Afghan national government, which is in the early stages of peace talks with the group that has waged a ruthless insurgency since it was toppled from power following a U.S.-led invasion in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said the claims were credible and it was investigating.
Not seen since the fall of the Taliban government nearly 14 years ago, Mr. Omar remains a unifying force even in hiding. His death would represent the end of a chapter for an organization that has gripped the country for more than two decades. And it would risk the beginning of a power struggle within the Taliban that could derail any chance of peace talks succeeding.
The timing of the news of Mr. Omar's death could be aimed at disrupting a second set of meetings between the Afghan government and the Taliban scheduled for Friday at the hilltop resort of Murree, outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The first round of talks earlier this month was hailed by the Pakistani and Afghan governments as a success.
The Taliban have neither confirmed nor denied that Mr. Omar is dead.
"It's been many years since Mullah Omar played a day-to-day role in running the Taliban organization, so the insurgents can live without him operationally. But he's an important symbol of unity for all of the fighters under the white Taliban flag scattered across the country," said Graeme Smith, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group and author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan.
"A great many militant commanders have sworn allegiance to Omar personally and so now you're starting to see splinter factions, breakaway groups saying, 'Look, he's dead and I no longer have to respect this oath that I swore, I'm going off on my own,'" Mr. Smith added in a telephone interview from Kabul, pointing to the flow of Taliban fighters to Islamic State and other militant groups.
Just two weeks ago, a Taliban statement around the Eid festival marking the end of Ramadan quoted Mr. Omar as supporting ongoing peace talks. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani used his Eid address to thank Mr. Omar for endorsing the talks.
The Taliban themselves are divided on whether to negotiate a political solution. And within Afghanistan, there is skepticism about talking to an enemy that is actively waging an insurgency.
On the Taliban side, some of the most strident opponents to peace talks are senior figures raising the question of whether Mr. Omar is alive or dead, Mr. Smith said.
"The louder the chorus of skepticism about Omar's existence gets, the tougher it is to negotiate because the folks you're talking to are arguing amongst themselves about who their leader is," he said.
Mr. Omar remains an enigma. A photograph from 1993 shows the veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war staring into the camera, his right eye damaged by shrapnel. In 1996, with the Taliban on the verge of grabbing control of Kabul, Mr. Omar was secretly filmed by a BBC crew as he spoke to his fighters in Kandahar.
Earlier this year, to push back against growing talk that Mr. Omar was dead, the Taliban released an official biography showing their leader actively involved in "jihadi activities." Talat Masood, a security analyst and a retired Pakistani general, said the Taliban were keen to keep Mr. Omar's death a secret in order to continue capitalizing on his charismatic status as the group's "Godfather." But talk of Mr. Omar's death has been growing over several months and years – and the likely source of the latest claim is a Taliban leader, he added.
"You can't continue to say that he is there yet you [neither] hear him nor see him," he said in an interview from Islamabad. He added that news of Mr. Omar's death could have a demoralizing effect on fighters and lead to a power struggle.
Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, a moderate who supports peace talks, is widely seen as the Taliban figure in charge. But whether he has a firm grip is another matter.