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Reports on death of Taliban's Mullah Omar "credible": White House

Xinhua, July 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Following a news release of the Afghan government on death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said on Wednesday that he could not confirm the death but the administration believes the reports are "credible."

Mullah Mohammed Omar died in April 2013 in Pakistan, a spokesperson for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said Wednesday in a news release, citing "credible information."

In announcing Omar's death, the spokesman for Ghani said the government is optimistic about the talks, "and thus calls on all armed opposition groups to seize the opportunity and join the peace process."

However, Schultz said in a statement that the U.S. intelligence community is looking into the reports.

According to a CNN report, Haseeb Sediqi, spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service, confirmed that Omar died in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2013.

Omar Samad, senior adviser to Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, also told CNN, "All odds and indications point to the fact that he has been dead for at least two years."

Omar has not been seen since the collapse of his regime by the U.S.-led military invasion in 2001. The U.S. government ever offered a reward of up to 10 million dollars for information leading to Omar's capture.

His death has been floating amid peace talks between Taliban representatives and the Afghanistan government.

The first round of face-on-face talks between the two sides was held in Pakistan a couple of weeks ago and the second round is expected to be held within days, probably in Islamabad.

A wanted man by the United States, the one-eyed Omar who escaped the biggest Washington military manhunt in the region over the past 14 years has several times been reported dead but no one has seen his coffin nor him alive.

Also on Wednesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in contact with media dismissed the media report on Omar's death as mere propaganda.

Omar, who established the Taliban Movement in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province in 1994 and announced his Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after capturing Kabul in 1996, has been leading a bloody insurgency since the collapse of Taliban regime in 2001 to re-establish his fanatic Islamic Emirate in the war- torn central Asian country. Endite