Mullah Omar killed? Taliban says no

The Taliban said on Monday that its supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar is alive and "living in a safe place," in Afghanistan dismissing reports that he was killed in Pakistan two days ago.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman dismissed as "totally" false the report that one-eyed Omar was shot dead as he was being moved from Quetta to North Waziristan by former Inter-Services Intelligence Chief General Hamid Gul.

 "We totally deny such reports that get published by our enemies and then other media publish the same baseless reports," Mujahid, was quoted as saying by New York Times.

Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik also said that "the rumors in the morning were false."

Former ISI chief Gul also vehemently denied that he was with Omar. Laughing at the reports and calling them completely baseless, he remarked "Was I killed too?" and "Am I speaking to you from heaven?"

General Gul said he was in Rawalpindi two days ago, though it was not clear whether the Afghan security directorate believed he was physically with Omar or was orchestrating the move from elsewhere.

The reports about Omar's killing in Pakistan came weeks after his close associate and al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden died in a United States special operation in Abbottabad near Islamabad.

Commenting on Omar's reported killing, Interior Minister Malik, said, "No North Atlantic Treaty Organisation action has taken place here and we have not received any information on him, even Taliban has refused to this claim and Afghanistan intelligence has said the same. The rumors in the morning were false."

Earlier, Afghan channel TOLO news reported quoting a source in the Afghan National Directorate of Security that Omar was killed in Pakistan. According to the source, Omar has been killed two days ago. But there was no official confirmation of the report and as to who killed him.

American intelligence officials suspect Omar and other senior Taliban leaders have been safely harbored for years in Quetta with the support of part of the Directorate for ISI, the military spy service formerly headed by Gul, who insisted he  has never met Mullah Omar.

German Brig Gen Joseph Blotz, chief spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, said NATO was looking into the reports of the Taliban leader's death but could not confirm it.