Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, Taliban's newly-anointed chief, may have deceived fellow insurgents for the past two years by claiming to pass orders and messages from Mullah Muhammad Omar even though he would have been aware that his boss had died in 2013, a media report said.


"Yet even by Mullah Omar's standards, his elusiveness in his final years was remarkable. Only a handful of high-ranking Taliban had any access to their leader, and by the middle of 2013 that number had been winnowed to one: Mullah Akhtar Mansour, effectively the No 2 in the insurgency," a report in the New York Times said.


It said that Afghan and American intelligence indicated that Mullah Omar was probably dead by 2013. "That means that Mullah Mansour may have spent most of the past two years deceiving his fellow insurgents by claiming to pass on orders and messages from Mullah Omar," it cited officials as saying. Mullah Mansour's statements appear to have "aroused the suspicion" of Mullah Omar's son Mullah Yaqoub and his brother Mullah Abdul Manan.


The report said both had previously had access to Mullah Omar, and they began telling people that they believed they were being kept away because he was dead.