Muhammad Omar

Mohammed Omar, often called Mullah Omar, was the leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, certainly through its origin, and possibly continuing to be its principal leader. Very little is known about him; as a world leader, Kim Jong Il has the public visibility of a Hollywood starlet. The United States offers up to USD $10 million for him, but its reward notice has only a picture and a few words.

Few pictures or descriptions exist, but he is generally described to be tall, black haired and bearded, and blind in one eye. The blindness is from a wound suffered while fighting the Soviets. He has been described as relatively young; various accounts give his year of birth as 1950, 1958 or 1962, with the Kandahar area mentioned most often as the place.

Taliban politics
As the Soviets were driven out, some Afghan militias indulged in banditry. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had been providing some assistance to the Taliban. According to retired major general Anwar Sher, the warlords s "...They thought they were demigods and could do what they liked," the Taliban was seen as a "Robin Hood" like force to reduce their excesses.

"Pakistan had wanted Omar to reduce his increasingly strict rule. With the coming of Osama bin Laden, however, the Taliban gained their own funding and independence.

Taking the mantle
He had been a relatively little-known fighter against the Soviets, when, in 1996, he was inspired to declare his leadership. The Taliban had been growing in strength, but were loosely organizaed. On April 4, 1996, he unsealed a shrine in Kandahar that held a cloak believed to have belonged to the Prophet, the founder of Islam. "The cloak had not been touched since some time in the 1930's. He lifted it in the air as he stood on a rooftop, displaying it to a crowd of followers. The event was caught on videotape, one of the very few times that he was ever photographed. He placed the cloak, which only the Prophet was said to have worn, upon his own shoulders. And at that moment, he declared himself the commander of the faithful, the leader of all Islam. No one had claimed that title since the Fourth Caliph, more than 1,000 years ago."

At approximately the same time, Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, met with Omar, provided him with funds, and urged him to spread his vision to the world.

Combat in 2001
Bin Laden had built a fortress-like headquarters for him in Kandahar. After the 9-11 attacks, he was a primary target. Early in the operations, on October 7, an unmanned aerial vehicle spotted what might have been his vehicle; it was attacked by missile and a nearby building bombed. Special Operations Forces (SOF) soldiers attacked Taliban headquarters in Kandahar on October 19-20, 2001.

Current status
He is believed to be in the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan. A Pakistani Taliban leader in South Waziristan said they are in close contact.