Mullah Omar – the evasive ghost who led the Taliban through secrecy - the guardian

Since 2001, Mullah Omar had been little more than a ghost, almost as elusive to his own rank and file as he was to the Taliban’s enemies. He was a cipher, figurehead and inspiration, but left the day-to-day military and political decisions to a circle of senior commanders.

“I have asked around a lot and there was no military strategy coming from Mullah Omar, not in 2001, not in 2005, not in 2010,” said Bette Dam, a journalist and author who has been researching a biography of Omar for several years.

That remove from power appears to have made it possible for the group to keep Omar officially “alive” long after his death, putting out an annual message for the Eid holidays in his name, for example. It also makes it hard to judge exactly how his absence will affect the group’s strategy, or the prospects for embryonic peace talks with the Afghan government.

There is also a possibility that Omar could still be alive. His obituary has been written several times before, including twice in 2011, when Afghan intelligence sources first said he had been shot dead, and then a month later Taliban websites put out a death notice, before saying they had been hacked. - Read More at the Guardian
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