The Taliban said yesterday that their reclusive one-eyed leader Mullah Omar was alive and accused the United States of hacking their mobile phones to claim that he was dead.
A text message sent to media from a phone belonging to a spokesman for the Islamists said: "Leadership council of IEA announces that Ameer-ul-Mumineen (Mullah Omar) has passed away. May mighty God bless him."
The IEA is the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name the Taliban gave themselves while in power from 1996 to 2001.
Some journalists also received an email, also seemingly from the Taliban, saying Omar had died from a heart condition, giving a lengthy obituary and naming his successor as Gul Agha, described as a close aide.
But Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied Omar's demise and said his phone -- where the text message appeared to come from -- had been hacked.
"We strongly reject this claim. We are not aware of such news. Americans have hacked our mobile phones with advanced technology and sent the message to the media," said Mujahid.
A second Taliban spokesman, Qari Yosuf Ahmadi, told AFP by telephone that the messages were false and made up by Westerners to "deceive the Afghan people".
In a subsequent email he denounced the hacking as "technical larceny" and claimed the Taliban's own technical wizards were on the case.
