Afghan Taliban say leader Mullah Omar 'safe and sound'

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban rejected as "propaganda" on Monday unsourced media reports that their reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been killed in Pakistan, saying he was alive and in Afghanistan and vowing to continue their insurgency.

Security officials in Pakistan and diplomats, U.S. military commanders and government officials in Afghanistan all cast doubt on reports that Omar, one of the most-wanted men in the world, had been killed while traveling between Quetta and North Waziristan in Pakistan.
"He is in Afghanistan safe and sound," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. "We strongly reject these baseless allegations that Mullah Mohammad Omar has been killed."
"This is the propaganda by the enemy to weaken the morale of fighters."
A spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said its sources knew that Mullah Omar had been living in the Pakistani town of Quetta in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan but had recently gone missing.
"We can confirm that he has been disappeared from his hideout in Quetta in Baluchistan for the last four or five days," NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told a news conference.
"We can't confirm if he is dead or alive."
The heavily bearded, one-eyed Omar is rarely seen in public.
With a million U.S. bounty on his head, he fled with the rest of the Afghan Taliban leadership to Quetta after their government was toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. They formed the "Quetta shura," or leadership council.
The Taliban were overthrown for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Bin Laden was killed by a U.S. Navy SEAL team in a garrison town not far from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, on May 2, ending a search that had dragged on for more than 10 years.
Bin Laden's killing came as a blow to an already splintered al Qaeda, but its ef ... (reuters)