Dismissing claim: Taliban say Mullah Omar’s son alive

ISLAMABAD:

The Afghan Taliban on Monday dismissed a claim by a senior Afghan official that the son of Mullah Omar has been killed in an attack in Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s first deputy speaker of the National Assembly Zahir Qadir claimed earlier that Mullah Omar’s son, Mullah Yaqub, was killed in Quetta last week.

“There is no truth in the claim. Yaqub is alive and I am in contact with him,” Agha Jan Motasim told The Express Tribune. Another Taliban official, Dr Aminul Haq said he had contacted Yaqub two days ago and Afghan officials were issuing baseless statements to create misunderstandings among the Taliban.

Qadir quoted ‘credible sources’ as saying that Yaqub was killed at a meeting by supporters of the new Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, four days ago.

Qadir told Tolo TV in Kabul that Yaqub, who was 21 or 22 years old, was seeking to be appointed as his father’s successor. “But  Mansoor also tried to become leader of the Taliban, therefore it is said that he was killed some days back.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2015.