Taliban Mullah Omar Is Dead - He Was 'Pious' but not 'Holy'

Afghanistan said yesterday that Mullah Omar, the leader who founded the Taliban, has been dead since April 2013. One of the most wanted men in the world for over a decade, Omar was also one of the most elusive, seldom seen of leaders, even when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Only a handful of foreigners ever saw him and little is known about him. Omar was born in 1959 or 1960 in a small village near the southern city of Kandahar, and had to care for his family from an early age after his father died. He became a cleric before joining the resistance against the Soviet-backed government between 1989 and 1992, and he lost his right eye when hit by shrapnel. Omar's rise was born from frustration at abuses perpetrated by armed resistance factions in the chaotic early 1990s, and he and his hardline Islamist Taliban movement seized power in 1996. Today, the Taliban movement fights to topple the Afghan government that took over when it was routed in 2001 by US-led forces in the aftermath of Omar's refusal to turn over Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attack. ~~~~~ Yesterday's announcement came just before a second round of peace talks had been tentatively scheduled. News of the death in Pakistan of the one-eyed Omar could increase already serious Taliban divisions over whether to fight or pursue negotiations with Kabul and how to stop defections from Taliban ranks to the younger, more "attractive" ISIS. There has been speculation for years that Omar was either incapacitated or dead. A senior Afghan Taliban commander based in neighboring Pakistan said Omar had died of natural causes, although he did not specify when. A Pakistani newspaper has reported that a former Afghan Taliban minister and current leadership council member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told their reporter that Mullah Omar died from tuberculosis, that Omar's son had identified the body, and that he was buried in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan presidential palace made a simple announcement : "The government...based on credible information, confirms that Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban, died in April 2013 in Pakistan." No details were released. Instead, the announcement focused on the proposed peace talks : "The government of Afghanistan believes that grounds for the Afghan peace talks are more paved now than before, and thus calls on all armed opposition groups to seize the opportunity and join the peace process." The Taliban's regular spokesman could not be reached by the media for comment. The White House said it was aware of reports of Omar's death and believed them to be "credible." Spokesman Eric Schultz said US intelligence continued to investigate the matter. ~~~~~ Preparations had been under way for the next round of talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, preliminarily planned for today or Friday in an unnamed location. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani wants a settlement with the insurgents, who have been gaining territory. The intensified Taliban attacks on both military and political targets have killed thousands of civilians and security personnel. And, the violence has become worse since NATO withdrew most of its forces from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. White House spokesman Schultz called on the Taliban to end the bloodshed : "They can accept the government of Afghanistan's invitation to join a peace process...or they can choose to continue fighting Afghans and destabilizing their own country," he said. ~~~~~ Omar and the Taliban suffered setbacks after the Taliban No. 2 Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured in Karachi in early 2010 in a joint operation by the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. US officials said Baradar produced useful intelligence on the group's operations in Afghanistan. Baradar, who was close to Omar, was the main day-to-day commander of the campaign against US and NATO troops, plotting suicide bombings and other major attacks. In his statements since 2008, Omar was more conciliatory, ordering fighters to stop beheading those accused of spying for the United States and insisting a Taliban government would not be a global threat. In one statement attributed to him, Omar said : "We want legitimate relations with countries of the world and we are not a threat to anyone." ~~~~~ Omar's death obviously has not affected Taliban operations on the ground, and the internal tug-of-war for power around the decision about who will replace him has apparently been settled quickly. The faction within the Taliban that wanted the promotion of political leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour to head the Taliban has won. Mansour, who has been among those who support peace talks, has been chosen to replace Omar as Taliban leader. One of Omar's sons, from the other more bellicose faction, has been named as Mansour's deputy, thus pasting the two factions together, at least for the time being. ~~~~~ Dear readers, Mullah Omar led a Taliban organization known for its brutal interpretation of sharia law that denied women education, health care and jobs, forcing them into the enveloping blue burqas that feature grills to enable women to see sufficiently to walk, on the few occasions when they were permitted by the Taliban to leave their homes. The Taliban hallmarks under Omar were suicide bombings, beheadings, executions and amputations carried out in public -- and the destruction of thousand-year-old irreplaceable statues of Buddha. The US military victory forced Omar and his leaders into hiding, from where they continued to coordinate raids against the Afghan government and NATO troops stationed there to restore stability. But, the unraveling of the US victory came as President Obama pursued his goal of ending the presence of US ground troops in the Middle East -- first in Iraq and then Afghanistan, universally seen by military analysts as unready to defend themselves. But, Obama told them to do just that -- with little or no help for Iraq until it faced collapse in 2013, and with only training and support for Afghanistan from the greatly reduced US advisory military units left in the country. So, while no one celebrates another human being's death, we can temper our reaction in the knowledge that Mullah Omar left behind him a Taliban with a record of inhumanely mistreating and terrorizing their fellow human beings - most of them fellow Moslems. He began by sanctioning beheadings, amputations and hangings based on a barbaric, primitive interpretation of the already-draconian sharia law. He protected Osama bin Laden from having to face justice for his crimes. Mullah Omar has been called "pious." His followers like to tell the story of his wrapping himself in the Prophet's robe - taken from a Kandahar shrine - and standing on a rooftop to declare jihad against Afghanistan's president. Mullah Omar's life describes perfectly the difference between being "pious" in a perverse sense and being "holy," as a true man of God always is.