WASHINGTON – Taliban Commander Mullah Umer was never in Pakistan, livedand died in Afghanistan near a US Military Base, sensational revelations byforeign journalist made in a new book.
The former leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar lived within walking distanceof US bases in Afghanistan for years, and died in the same country, a newbook has revealed.
Bette Dam, a Dutch journalist, has exposed the failure of US intelligenceas American troops once searched the house where he was hiding but failedto find a secret room built for him.
The biography by Dam in Dutch is being translated and shared by Zomiathinktank and a summary of some findings confirms that the fugitive Talibanleader lived in Afghanistan and even refused any kind of treatment fromPakistani doctor.
The accounts also confirm that the US intelligence failed to locate theone-eyed Taliban leader with its eyes wide open; Omar died and was buriedin Afghanistan as per the sensational biography putting to rest allegationsby the Afghan regime in 2015 that he died in Pakistan.
“The government … based on credible information, confirms that MullahMohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban died in April 2013 in Pakistan,” theAfghan presidential palace had said in a statement in 2015 which now standsfalse on the basis of the latest biography.
Bette Dam sat with Afghan officials and Taliban leaders to document thelife of Mullah Omar, however, the most chilling conversations about thewhereabouts of the former Taliban leader were with Jabbar Omari who hid,protected and fed him until his death.
Jabbar Omari had been a provincial governor when the Taliban ruledAfghanistan, but gave up any active role in the movement to serve as a kindof bodyguard to Omar after 2001 until his death.
In an interview in a Kabul safehouse, Omari lift the lid off Mullah Omar’ssecretive life that for the first four years of the insurgency Omar livedin the regional capital, Qalat, within walking distance of the Afghangovernor’s compound and the area later chosen to house the main US base forthe area, forward operating base (FOB) Lagman.
Omar’s wives moved to Pakistan and he [Omar] refused my offer to bring hisson to visit, Omari said in the interview.
His shelter was the home of Abdul Samad Ustaz, Omari’s former driver, whowas then operating a taxi. It was a small compound, with a courtyard andadobe home concealed behind high walls that are traditional for privacy inmuch of Afghanistan.
He created a secret room in the corner angle of the L-shaped residentialbuilding, its entrance a door hidden behind what looked like a highcupboard on the wall.
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The family were not told the identity of their guest, only that he was ahigh-level Talib and that they would be killed if they spoke to anyoneabout it.
“I have frightened my wife,” Ustaz told a friend at the time.
What ratifies the failure of US intelligence is that the American forcesnearly stumbled across Omar twice but were unable to hunt him down.
“The first time, a patrol came by as Omar and Omari were in the courtyard.Seized with fear at the sound of approaching footsteps, they hid behind ahigh pile of firewood, and the soldiers passed without entering,” thebiography states.
The second search was even more close to Omar as US troops searched thehouse housing Taliban leader but did not find the concealed entrance to thesecret room and Omari was unaware whether the search was a routine patrolor in response to a tip-off.
When US troops began building FOB Lagman in 2004, just a few hundred metresfrom his hideout, Omar decided to move and relocated to a remote hamlet,little more than a cluster of houses, beside a river that sometimes randry, around 20 miles south-east of Qalat, in Shinkay district.
There, Ustaz (Omari’s former driver) built Omar a small shack on the edgeof the river, connected to underground irrigation channels that ran up intothe hills and could offer a possible escape route for any danger of search.
Even after relocation, Omar was not safe because the US started buildinganother base just three miles away. At the peak of the war, ForwardOperating Base Wolverine was home to over 1,000 troops from the US and theother Nato nations supporting them but they all failed to track down thefugitive Taliban leader who did not relocate again.
“It was very dangerous for us there. Sometimes there was only a table widthbetween us and the foreign military,” Omari told Dam adding that Omarrarely went outside, except to take the sun in winter, and would often hidein the tunnels as US planes flew over or troops passed by.
