He really seems to be dead this time.
Afghan officials have
announced that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is dead. And has been for two years. Two years. What did our government know about that? Good question.
A White House spokesman, Eric Schulz, said in a briefing that American officials were aware of the reports and found them "credible." But he stopped short of confirming Mullah Omar's death, saying, "The intelligence agencies are right now reviewing these reports." When asked why the United States was just now becoming aware of the Taliban leader's death after two years, Mr. Schulz said, "I'm just not going to be able to comment on the specifics."
Granted, Omar has been
rumored to be dead plenty of times in the past several years. But this time seems pretty real. Then there's
this.
Haseeb Sediqi, spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service, told CNN that Omar died in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2013.
Sediqi said that intelligence service—the National Directorate of Security—was aware of Omar's death long ago and had conveyed that to Afghanistan's parliament. He also said he mentioned it at least three times in his past press conferences.
Apparently our intelligence community isn't paying attention to press conferences by Afghanistan's intelligence service. Or perhaps they've known for the past two years that Omar had died and for some inexplicable reason decided they had to keep that a big secret.
Why it would need to be a secret is unfathomable, but so is the thought that this news is coming as a complete surprise to them now. Maybe they should be spending a little less time on siphoning up all of America's electronic communications and more on what people are talking about in Afghanistan and Pakistan.