According to Pakistan's Dawn, Afghan officials claim Mullah Omar has disappeared from his hideout in Quetta, Pakistan, although they "cannot confirm the killing" of the Taliban's leader.
The Taliban, however, vehemently deny this.
Is this just a case of he said/he said? Bill Roggio, as always, does a good job sorting out the competing claims.
Alternatively, this could be a case . . . wait, Afghan intelligence has sources who know where Mullah Omar's hideout is?!? To paraphrase Seth Green in "Austin Powers": I have a SEAL Team in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out! (To which Dr. Evil responds: "Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.")
Seriously, though, I'm skeptical of this report. Roggio is right that, although it is possible Mullah Omar is relocating in the wake of the Abbottabad raid, it is highly unlikely for a variety of reasons.
Moreover, it is unlikely that the "Commander of the Faithful" would be killed without acknowledgement of the Taliban. Although such an event would be a crippling blow to the insurgency, al-Qaeda and other affiliated extremists groups have historically acknowledged the deaths of their senior leaders so that their followers can perform the proper prayer rituals for them, and this religious observance has trumped the strategic downside to admitting a successful U.S. strike.
This is why I was always skeptical of analysts who suggested that the seeming frigidity of bin Laden's trail during the last decade suggested he may have died of natural causes.
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