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PESHAWAR, Sept 27: A former Taliban diplomat claimed here on Friday that their supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden were both alive and in good physical condition.
Naseer Ahmed Roohi, who is also heading Tehreek Jamiat Shababul Muslimeen (Movement of Young Muslims), claimed this at a hurriedly-called press conference at an unidentified place.
Only a selected group of journalists was invited to attend the press conference while photojournalists were not allowed for coverage.
Roohi, 36-year old, sporting short beard, was a diplomat in the United Arab Emirates during Taliban government. He claimed that he met Mulla Omar 15 days ago inside Afghanistan, but didn’t disclose the exact location.
He told the newsmen that 5,000 members and supporters of his movement were fighting against the Afghan and US forces in Paktia province. “Mulla Omar is in high spirits and is commanding Mujahideen inside Afghanistan,” he asserted.
He claimed that his men shot down one B-52 bomber in Bandsarda area of Paktia. In Ghazni province they ransacked and destroyed the office of a missionary NGO.
He claimed that Pakistan government had handed over 1,000 Taliban leaders and supporters to the United States. He said the people killed in Azam Warsak in southern Waziristan during a clash with the raiding Pakistan force on June 26 were Uzbek nationals, and their leader, Qari Mohammad Tahir, made his escape good.
GETS INSTRUCTIONS: Roohi said: “I met him (Omar) in Afghanistan 15 days ago to receive instructions from him,” Reuter adds.
“Mulla Omar never left Afghanistan since this time (of the September 11 attacks last year),” he said, adding that Omar and Osama were in contact with each other.
According to Roohi, Taliban remnants were behind an assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai in early September in the southern city of Kandahar.
