Mullah Omar

Mullah Muhammad Omar (; –April 2013) was an Afghan Islamic revolutionary who founded the Taliban and served as the supreme leader of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Born into a religious family of Kandahar, Omar was educated at local ''madrasas'' in Afghanistan. Following the Soviet invasion in 1979, he joined the Afghan mujahideen in the Soviet–Afghan War. He served as an important military general during several skirmishes and lost his right eye in an explosion. Afterward, the Soviets withdrew in 1989 and the communist rule of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was toppled in 1992, prompting a civil war in Afghanistan. He initially remained quiet and continued his studies, though the practice of ''bacha bazi'' and ''fasad'' in the country prompted Omar to take part in the civil war. In 1994, Omar formed the Taliban along with religious students in Kandahar. The Taliban emerged victorious in the civil war and established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with Omar serving as the country's emir.

Omar formed an Islamic state headed by the Supreme Council and imposed the Sharia. He faced a period of food shortages, refugee crisis, economic downturn and devastated infrastructure, all of which resulted from the twenty years of continuous warfare. Omar's regime coincided with the September 11 attacks, which were carried out by the extremist organization al-Qaeda. The United States accused the Taliban of harboring al-Qaeda and invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, with the aid of several countries and militant organizations, including the Northern Alliance. The Taliban's government was ousted by December 2001 and Omar fled his hometown, concealed himself in Zabul and delegated the operational control to his deputies. Under his command, the Taliban launched an insurgency in 2004. Although Omar was the subject of a decade-long international manhunt, he remained hidden throughout the rest of his life and naturally died in 2013.

Widely considered one of Afghanistan's most significant figures, Omar remains popular among the Taliban, viewing him as a freedom fighter who played an important role in defending Islamic principles against the spread of Western culture in Afghanistan. On the other hand, he has been criticized for his strict government and for his extremist views.

Personal life

Despite his political rank and his high status on the Rewards for Justice most wanted list, not much was publicly known about him. Omar made no public speeches and always refused to meet foreigners; Before his death, only one known photo existed of him. After his death, the Taliban released a newer and clearer photo showing Omar in his youth in 1978. Accounts of his physical appearance state that Omar was thin, strongly built and very tall, at around .Ismail Khan, "Mojaddedi Opposes Elevation of Taliban's Omar", ''Islamabad the News'', 6 April 1996, quoted in Wright, ''Looming Tower'', (2006), p. 226 Omar was described as shy and taciturn, by – for example – the famed Afghan poet Abdul Bari Jahani, who visited him with academics and activists at the beginning of his rule. The members of this group applauded the order and security he brought to the country, and Jahani remembers him as a "tall and handsome" man who "listened in quiet." Zaeef said "he listened, he was patient, and he did not react in anger." Conversely, a former Saudi intelligence chief who met him said Omar was "extremely nervous, perspired, and even screamed at me." Senior Taliban leaders claimed he would "stumble over his native tongue in the interviews he occasionally gave the BBC Pashto service." He had "at least" three wives and "at least" five or six children, including Mohammad Yaqoob, the current acting Defence Minister of Afghanistan.

Omar studied at a religious school or madrasa run by his uncle. According to Gopal and Strick van Linschoten, all his religious education was in Afghan hujras, which are small religious schools annexed to village mosques. He completed his primary and secondary religious education, then began higher religious studies at 18. His studies were interrupted before he completed them and he did not properly earn the title "Mullah". Later in life he was given an honorary degree by the Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia seminary in Karachi, Pakistan, but he never studied there, contrary to some reports. He was also given an honorary doctorate by Darul Uloom Haqqania in northwestern Pakistan, where numerous other senior Taliban leaders studied. Some sources have claimed that he studied there, but its leader Sami-ul-Haq said that he did not know of Omar until 1994. Despite receiving a personal invitation from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in 1998, Omar refused to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and would not do one in his lifetime.

In April 2015, during the time when his death was being kept secret, the Taliban published a biography of Omar to mark his "19th year as their supreme leader," when in fact he had already died on 23 April 2013. According to this biography, Omar was born in 1960 at the village of Chah-i-Himmat in the Khakrez District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. However, according to ''The Daily Telegraph'' he was instead born in Uruzgan Province. He came from a line of Islamic scholars and teachers. His father was Mawlawi Ghulam Nabi, his grandfather Mawlawi Muhammad Rasool, and his great-grandfather Mawlawi Baz Muhammad. They were of the Tomzi clan of the Hotak tribe, which is part of the larger Ghilzai tribal confederation of the Pashtuns.Rashid, ''Taliban'', (2001) His father, born in Khakrez District, was a poor, landless itinerant teacher who taught the Quran to village boys and received alms from their families. He died when Omar was three years old, according to Omar's own words, or five years old, according to the Taliban biography. Thereafter Omar was raised by his uncles.Audio link
(in Pashto with Arabic voiceover). One of his father's brothers, Maulawi Muzafer, married Omar's widowed mother, as was often done in rural Afghanistan. The family moved to the village of Dehwanawark, several miles from the town of Deh Rawood, in the poor Deh Rawood District in Uruzgan Province, where the uncle was a religious teacher. According to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, "Omar's father was a local religious leader, but the family was poor and had absolutely no political links in Kandahar or Kabul. They were essentially lower middle class Afghans and were definitely not members of the elite."

Mujahideen era

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Omar joined the mujahideen in Deh Rawood to fight the Soviets. In 1983 he moved with mujahideen friends to Maywand District in Kandahar Province and fought under Faizullah Akhundzada, the commander of a group affiliated with Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami (Islamic and National Revolution Movement). Abdul Ghani Baradar was another from Deh Rawood who was in the group. Omar fought in the Maiwand, Zhari, Panjwai and Dand districts and was an expert in using rocket-propelled grenades against tanks. In the last years of the war, some mujahideen groups split up, and Omar and his friends left Faizullah Akhundzada's group. They formed a new group under Omar's leadership, based at Aday, in the Singesar area, then in the Panjwayi District and now in Zhari District, and became registered with Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami as an affiliated group. Omar was wounded four times. Abdul Salam Zaeef has said he was present when exploding shrapnel destroyed Omar's right eye at Singesar during the 1987 Battle of Arghandab. Other sources place this event in 1986 or in the 1989 Battle of Jalalabad. Omar went to a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, for treatment to his eye wound. According to former Taliban official Abdul Hai Mutmaen (or Mutma’in), this was the only time that Omar ever went to Pakistan, and that he returned after treatment. According to Dutch journalist Bette Dam, in research published in 2019, he went to Pakistan on one other occasion during the war, to fetch weapons following a dispute within his mujahideen group. Mutmaen denies that Omar went there for weapons, but acknowledges that a few members of Omar's family claim he visited Pakistan four times during the war – once for the injury, then to register his group, and two visits to injured friends.

The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. According to Ahmed Rashid, Omar joined the mujahideen group Hezb-i Islami Khalis and fought under the command of Nek Mohammed against Mohammad Najibullah's communist regime between 1989 and 1992.

After Najibullah's government collapsed in 1992, Omar and a group of mujahideen turned their base near Haji Ibrahim Mosque in Gheshano village, in the Singesar area, into a madrassa. As well as teaching there, Omar resumed his own studies that had been interrupted by the war. Unlike many Afghan mujaheddin, Omar spoke Arabic. He was devoted to the lectures of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam.

Forming the Taliban

After Najibullah's regime ended, the country fell into chaos as various mujahideen factions fought for control. According to one legend, Omar had a dream in 1994 in which a woman told him: "We need your help; you must rise. You must end the chaos. God will help you."Dexter Filkins, ''The Forever War'' (New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 2009; orig. ed. 2008), p.30. Omar started his movement with less than 50 armed madrassah students who were simply known as the Taliban (Pashtun for 'students'). His recruits came from madrassas located in Afghanistan and the Afghan refugee camps which were located across the border in Pakistan. They fought against the rampant corruption which had emerged during the civil war period and were initially welcomed by Afghans who were weary of warlord rule. Apparently, Omar became sickened by the abusive raping of children by warlords and turned against their authority in the mountainous country of Afghanistan from 1994 onwards.

Two influential anti-Soviet political leaders who were connected with Peshawar during this era were Mohammad Yunus Khalis and Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi; both exerted a considerable influence over the Taliban, particularly in the southern parts of the country, including Kandahar. Many of those who later formed the core of the Taliban, including Omar, fought under the command of factions that were loyal to Nabi Mohammadi. These factions had helped spread ''madrasa'', attended by many of the Kandahar Taliban, throughout the southern regions of Afghanistan.

The practice of bacha bazi by warlords was one of the key factors in Omar mobilizing the Taliban. Reportedly, in early 1994, Omar led 30 men armed with 16 rifles to free two young girls who had been kidnapped and raped by a warlord, hanging him from a tank gun barrel. Another instance arose when in 1994, a few months before the Taliban took control of Kandahar, two militia commanders confronted each other over a young boy whom they both wanted to sodomize. In the ensuing fight, Omar's group freed the boy; appeals soon flooded in for Omar to intercede in other disputes. His movement gained momentum through the year and he quickly gathered recruits from Islamic schools totaling 12,000 by the year's end with some Pakistani volunteers. By November 1994, Omar's movement managed to capture the whole of the Kandahar Province and then captured the Herat Province in September 1995.Goodson (2001) p. 107 Some accounts estimated that by the spring of 1995 he had already taken 12 of the 31 provinces in Afghanistan.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Leadership

On 4 April 1996, supporters of Omar bestowed the title ''Amir al-Mu'minin'' (أمير المؤمنين, ) on him, after he donned a cloak which was alleged to be that of Muhammad, locked in a series of chests and held inside the Shrine of the Cloak ( Kirka Sharif) in the city of Kandahar. Legend decreed that whoever could retrieve the cloak from the chest would be the great Leader of the Muslims, or the "''Amir al-Mu'minin''.

In September 1996, Kabul fell to Omar and his followers. The civil war continued in the northeast corner of the country, near Tajikistan. In October 1997 the nation was named the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and recognized by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Described as a "reclusive, pious and frugal" leader,Griffiths, John C. ''Afghanistan: A History of Conflict'', 1981. Second Revision, 2001. Omar rarely left his residence in the city of Kandahar, and he only visited Kabul twice between 1996 and 2001 during his tenure as ruler of Afghanistan. In November 2001, during a radio interview with the BBC, Omar stated: "All Taliban are moderate. There are two things: extremism ifraat', or doing something to excessand conservatism tafreet', or doing something insufficiently So in that sense, we are all moderates – taking the middle path." During his tenure as Afghanistan's ruler, Omar seldom left the city of Kandahar, where he lived in a large house reportedly built for him by Osama bin Laden, the Saudi militant who was the founder of al-Qaeda.

Omar had a complicated relationship with Osama bin Laden. According to Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, Omar stated in the late 1990s, "We have told Osama in Ladennot to use Afghan soil to carry out political activities as it creates unnecessary confusion about Taliban objectives." Bin Laden was a challenge for Omar: he was widely seen as a defender of the faith, had deep pockets, and if he were to censure the Taliban, the movement would likely end. However, Omar did not want bin Laden spreading a message of jihad. Omar summoned bin Laden to meet him in 1996 after bin Laden's declaration of jihad against the United States the same year. He asked bin Laden to stop talking about the jihad, but as a matter of Pashtun tribal custom did not outright forbid him, as it would be deeply insulting to a guest. Bin Laden chose to ignore Omar. The high stature of Bin Laden and his importance in keeping the Taliban in power were further evidenced by Omar visiting bin Laden as a guest, a sign of deference and respect. After the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the US launched cruise missiles against al-Qaeda training camps and sought bin Laden. This inadvertently created more sympathy for bin Laden in Afghanistan. Omar did not hand bin Laden over, citing Pashtunwali tribal customs that require a host to protect guests, and that bin Laden was a guest of Afghanistan. Privately, Omar felt that if he bowed to the US by turning over bin Laden, the US would try to further influence Afghanistan and attempt to meddle in its religious matters. In 2000, Omar ordered bin Laden to not attack the United States, after advisors warned him that bin Laden might be planning to do so. Omar suggested to the US that bin Laden be turned over to an international Islamic court, or simply exiled, but the US turned both suggestions down.

Omar was also "Head of the Supreme Council of Afghanistan". The Supreme Council was initially established at Kandahar in 1994.

Bamiyan Buddhas

In July 1999, Mohammed Omar issued a decree in favor of the preservation of the Bamiyan Buddha statues. Because Afghanistan's Buddhist population no longer exists, so the statues are no longer worshiped, he added: "The government considers the Bamiyan statues as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors. The Taliban states that Bamiyan shall not be destroyed but protected."

In early 2000, local Taliban authorities asked for UN assistance to rebuild drainage ditches around tops of the alcoves where the Buddhas were set.

In March 2001, the Bamiyan Buddha statues were destroyed by the Taliban under an edict issued from Omar, stating: "all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed." This prompted an international outcry. Information and Culture Minister Qadratullah Jamal told Associated Press of a decision by 400 religious clerics from across Afghanistan declaring the Buddhist statues against the tenets of Islam. "They came out with a consensus that the statues were against Islam," said Jamal. A statement issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Taliban regime justified the destruction as being in accordance with Islamic law. The then Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef held that the destruction of the Buddhas was finally ordered by Abdul Wali, the Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Omar explained why he ordered the statues to be destroyed in an interview:

Opium production

In July 2000, Taliban leader Mohammed Omar, in an effort to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three-quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time. The ban was effective only briefly due to the deposition of the Taliban in 2001.

Al-Qaeda 11 September 2001 attacks

Following the September 11 attacks on the United States carried out by al-Qaeda, the United States under the Bush administration issued an ultimatum to Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden and other high ranking al-Qaeda officials and shut down all al-Qaeda training camps within the country. In an interview with Voice of America, Omar was asked if he would give up Osama bin Laden. Omar replied, "No. We cannot do that. If we did, it means we are not Muslims, that Islam is finished. If we were afraid of attack, we could have surrendered him the last time we were threatened." Omar explained his position to high-ranking Taliban officials:

Omar was adamant that bin Laden was innocent of planning the 9/11 attacks despite the accusations directed against him. Nonetheless, high-ranking Taliban officials attempted to persuade Omar to hand bin Laden over and made offers to the United States through its contacts with Pakistan. The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef said at a news conference in Islamabad that "our position in this regard is that if the Americans have evidence, they should produce it." If they could prove their allegations, he said, "we are ready for a trial of Osama bin Laden." The Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil also attempted to negotiate, offering the Americans the proposal of setting up a three-nation court under the supervision of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference as it was a "neutral organization" or having bin Laden tried by an Islamic council in Afghanistan. Muttawakil said "the US showed no interest in it." The Taliban Prime Minister Abdul Kabir

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