Honorific-prefix	Mullah
Name	Mohammed Omarملا محمد عمر
Order	Head of the Supreme Council of Afghanistan
Primeminister	Mohammad RabbaniAbdul Kabir (Acting)
Term start	27 September 1996
Term end	13 November 2001
Predecessor	Burhanuddin Rabbani (President)
Successor	Burhanuddin Rabbani (President)
Birth place	Nodeh, Afghanistan
Party	Islamic and National Revolution Movement of AfghanistanTaliban
Alma mater	Darul Uloom Haqqania
Religion	Sunni Islam
Battles	Soviet war in AfghanistanAfghan civil warWar in Afghanistan (2001–present) }}

Mullah Mohammed Omar (; born c. 1959), often simply called Mullah Omar, is the spiritual leader of the Taliban. He was Afghanistan's ''de facto'' head of state from 1996 to late 2001, under the official title "Head of the Supreme Council". He held the title Commander of the Faithful of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which was recognized by only three nations: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Mullah Omar has been wanted by the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program since October 2001, for sheltering Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda militants in the years prior to the September 11 attacks. Those who were close to him say that he requested evidence from the United States regarding Osama and his alleged hand in the 9/11 attacks but did not receive any. He is believed to be directing the Taliban insurgency against the U.S.-led NATO forces and the Government of Afghanistan.

Despite his political rank and his high status on the Rewards for Justice most wanted list, not much is publicly known about him. Few photos exist of him, none of them official, and a picture used in 2002 by many media outlets has since been established to be someone other than him. The authenticity of the existing images is debated. Apart from the fact that he is missing one eye, accounts of his physical appearance are contradictory: Omar is described as very tall (some say 2 m). Mullah Omar has been described as shy and non-talkative with foreigners.

During his tenure as Emir of Afghanistan, Omar seldom left the city of Kandahar and rarely met with outsiders, instead relying on Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil for the majority of diplomatic necessities. Many, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, claim that Mullah Omar and his Taliban movement are used as puppets by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Pakistan. Additionally, many current and former U.S. senior military officials such as Robert Gates, Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus and others claim that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are also involved in helping the Taliban.

Personal life

Omar is thought to have been born around 1959 in Nodeh, near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in Afghanistan to a landless peasant family. He grew up in a village in the Maiwand area of Kandahar Province, next to Helmand Province. He is an ethnic Pashtun from the Hotak tribe, which is part of the larger Ghilzai branch. His father is said to have died before he was born and the responsibility of fending for his family fell to him as he grew older. He is believed to have attended the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa.

Soviet invasion and radicalization

Omar fought as a guerrilla with the ''Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami'' faction of the anti-soviet Mujahideen under the command of Nek Mohammad, and fought against the Najibullah regime between 1989 and 1992. It was reported that he was thin, but tall and strongly built, and "a crack marksman who had destroyed many Soviet tanks during the Afghan War."

Omar was wounded four times. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef claims to have been present when shrapnel destroyed one of his eyes during a battle in Sangsar, Panjwaye District shortly before the 1987 Battle of Arghandab. Other sources place this event in 1986 or in the 1989 Battle of Jalalabad.

After he was disabled, Omar may have studied and taught in a madrasah, or Islamic seminary, in the Pakistani border city of Quetta. He was reportedly a mullah at a village madrasah near the Afghan city of Kandahar.

Unlike many Afghan mujahideen, Omar speaks Arabic. He was devoted to the lectures of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, and took a job teaching in a madrassa in Quetta. He later moved to Binoori Mosque in Karachi, where he led prayers, and later met with Osama bin Laden for the first time.

Forming the Taliban

Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the collapse of Najibullah's Soviet-backed regime in 1992, the country fell into chaos as various mujahideen factions fought for control. Omar returned to Singesar and founded a madrassah. According to one legend, in 1994 he had a dream in which a woman told him: "We need your help; you must rise. You must end the chaos. God will help you." Mullah Omar started his movement with less than 50 armed madrassah students, known simply as the Taliban (Students). His recruits came from madrassahs in Afghanistan and from the Afghan refugee camps across the border in Pakistan. They fought against the rampant corruption that had emerged in the civil war period and were initially welcomed by Afghans weary of warlord rule. Reportedly, in early 1994, Omar led 30 men armed with 16 rifles to free youths who had been kidnapped and raped by a warlord, hanging the local commander from a tank gun barrel. The youths have been inconsistently identified as two young boys, a single boy, or two boys. His movement gained momentum through the year, and he quickly gathered recruits from Islamic schools. By November 1994, Omar's movement managed to capture the whole of Kandahar Province and then captured Herat in September 1995.

Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

In April 1996, supporters of Mullah Omar bestowed on him the title ''Amir al-Mu'minin'' (أمير المؤمنين, "Commander of the Faithful"), after he donned a cloak alleged to be that of Muhammad which was locked in a series of chests, held inside the Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed in the city of Kandahar. Legend decreed that whoever could retrieve the cloak from the chest would be the great Leader of the Muslims, or "''Amir al-Mu'minin''".

In September 1996, Kabul fell to Mullah Omar and his followers. The civil war continued in the northeast corner of the country, near Tajikistan. The nation was named the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in October 1997 and was recognized by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A "reclusive, pious and frugal" leader, Omar visited Kabul twice between 1996 to 2001. Omar stated: "All Taliban are moderate. There are two things: extremism ["ifraat", or doing something to excess] and conservatism ["tafreet", or doing something insufficiently]. So in that sense, we are all moderates – taking the middle path.

In a BBC's Pashto interview after the September 11 attacks in 2001, he told that "You (the BBC) and American puppet radios have created concern. But the current situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause - that is the destruction of America...This is not a matter of weapons. We are hopeful for God's help. The real matter is the extinction of America. And, God willing, it [America] will fall to the ground... We will not accept a government of wrong-doers. We prefer death than to be a part of an evil government..."

In hiding

After the US led Operation Enduring Freedom began in early October 2001, Omar went into hiding and is still at large. He is thought to be in the Pashtun tribal region of Afghanistan or Pakistan. At first, the United States offered a reward of US$10 million for information leading to his capture. In November 2001, he ordered Taliban troops to abandon Kabul and take to the mountains, noting that "defending the cities with front lines that can be targeted from the air will cause us terrible loss".

Claiming that the Americans had circulated 'propaganda' that Mullah Omar had gone into hiding, Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil stated that he would like to "propose that prime minister Blair and president Bush take Kalashnikovs and come to a specified place where Omar will also appear to see who will run and who not." He stated that Omar was merely changing locations due to security reasons.

In the opening weeks of October 2001, Omar's house in Kandahar was bombed, killing his stepfather and his 10-year old son.

Mullah Omar continues to have the allegiance of prominent pro-Taliban military leaders in the region, including Jalaluddin Haqqani. Former foe Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's faction has also reportedly allied with Omar and the Taliban. In April 2004, Omar was interviewed via phone by Pakistani journalist Mohammad Shehzad. During the interview, Omar claimed that Osama Bin Laden was alive and well, and that his last contact with Bin Laden was months before the interview. Omar declared that the Taliban were "hunting Americans like pigs".

A captured Taliban spokesman, Muhammad Hanif, told Afghan authorities in January 2007, that Omar was being protected by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Quetta, Pakistan. This matches an allegation made in 2006 by the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, though it is denied by officials in Pakistan.

Numerous statements have been released identified as coming from Omar. In June 2006 a statement regarding the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq was released hailing al-Zarqawi as a martyr and claimed that the resistance movements in Afghanistan and Iraq "will not be weakened". Then in December 2006 Omar reportedly issued a statement expressing confidence that foreign forces will be driven out of Afghanistan.

In January 2007, it was reported that Omar made his 'first exchange with a journalist since going into hiding' in 2001, with Muhammad Hanif via email and courier. In it he promised 'more Afghan War', and said the 100+ suicide bomb attacks in Afghanistan in the last year had been carried out by bombers acting on religious orders from the Taliban – “the mujahedeen do not take any action without a fatwa.” In April 2007, Omar issued another statement through an intermediary encouraging more suicide attacks.

In November 2009, the ''Washington Times'' claimed that Omar, assisted by the ISI, had moved to Karachi in October. In January 2010, Brigadier Amir Sultan Tarar, a retired officer with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency who previously trained Omar, said that he was ready to break with his al-Qaida allies in order to make peace in Afghanistan: ''"The moment he gets control the first target will be the al-Qaida people"''.

In January 2011, the ''Washington Post'', citing a report from the Eclipse Group, a privately-operated intelligence network that may be contracted by the CIA, stated that Omar had suffered a heart attack on 7 January 2011. According to the report, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency rushed Omar to a hospital near Karachi where he was operated-on and treated, then was released several days later. Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, stated that the report, "had no basis whatsoever."

On 23 May 2011, TOLO News in Afghanistan quoted unnamed sources saying Omar had been killed by ISI two days earlier. These reports remain unconfirmed. A spokesman for the militant group said shortly after the news came out. "Reports regarding the killing of Amir-ul-Moemineen (Omar) are false. He is safe and sound and is not in Pakistan but Afghanistan". On 20 July 2011 phone text messages from accounts used by Taliban spokesmen Zabihullah Mujahid and Qari Mohammad Yousuf announced Omar's death. Mujahid and Yousuf, however, quickly denied sending the messages, claimed that their mobile phones, websites, and email accounts had been hacked, and swore revenge on the telephone network providers.

In 2012, it was revealed that an individual claiming to be Omar sent a letter to President Barack Obama in 2011, expressing slight interest in peace talks.

Notes

References

Weber, Olivier, (2001), ''The Afghan hawk'', Robert Laffont ISBN 10-2221093135

Further reading

External links

Mullah Mohammed Omar collected news and commentary at ''Newsweek''

;Interviews

Mullah Omar - in his own words, ''The Guardian'', 26 September 2001

Interview with Mullah Omar - transcript, ''BBC News'', 15 November 2001

;Articles

Investigating Terror: Accomplices, ''BBC News'', 2001

US says Mullah Omar 'in Pakistan', ''BBC News'', 9 February 2008

Mullah Mohammed Omar, ''Hindustan Times'', 6 September 2009

Profile: Mullah Mohammed Omar, ''BBC News'', 6 July 2010

Category:1959 births Category:Afghan anti-communists Category:Afghan Islamists Category:Afghan Sunni Muslims Category:FBI Most Wanted Terrorists Category:Fugitives wanted by the United States Category:Fugitives wanted on terrorism charges Category:Heads of state of Afghanistan Category:Leaders who took power by coup Category:Living people Category:Pashtun people Category:People of the Soviet war in Afghanistan Category:People from Kandahar Province Category:Politicians with physical disabilities

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name	Omar Abdullah عمر عبدالله
birth date	March 10, 1970
birth place	Rochford, Essex, United Kingdom
residence	Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
office1	Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
term start1	05 January 2009
predecessor1	President's Rule
successor1	Incumbent
office2	Minister of State for External Affairs
primeminister2	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
term start2	23 July 2001
term end2	23 December 2002
predecessor2	U V Krishnam Raju
successor2	Digvijay Singh
party	Jammu and Kashmir National Conference
spouse	Payal Nath Singh Ne(separated)
children	Zahir Abdullah and Zamir Abdullah(sons)
twitter	@abdullah_omar }}

Omar Abdullah (, ), born 10 March 1970, is an Indian Kashmiri politician and the scion of one of the state's most prominent political family, the Abdullah family who became the 11th and the youngest Chief Minister of the northern Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, after forming a government in coalition with the Congress party, on January 5, 2009.

He was a member of 14th Lok Sabha, representing Srinagar constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, India. He was a Union Minister of State for External affairs in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA government, from July 23, 2001 to December 23, 2002. He resigned from NDA government in October 2002 to concentrate on party work.

Omar joined politics in 1998, as a Lok Sabha member, a feat he repeated in subsequent three elections and also remained a Union minister; he took on the mantle of National Conference from his father in 2002, though he lost his own seat of Ganderbal during the 2002 state assembly elections, and so did his party, the political mandate; four years later, he contested once again from the same seat and won in the 2008 Kashmir Elections.

Early life and education

Omar Abdullah was born 10 March 1970. He is the son of Farooq Abdullah and grandson of Sheikh Abdullah, all three of whom have been List of Prime and Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir. His mother Mollie, a British Christian, and a nurse by profession, was not in favor of him joining politics. He studied at the Burn Hall School, Srinagar and then at Lawrence School, Sanawar. He is an alumnus of Sydenham College, Mumbai (where he did his B.Com.). After that he joined the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, for an MBA, although he did not complete it.

He married Payal Nath, daughter of an Army officer, Major General Ram Nath from Delhi on September 1, 1994, and the couple have two sons, Zahir and Zamir, hence. They are currently separated. His younger sister, Sara Abdullah is married to Sachin Pilot, son of Rajesh Pilot.

Political career

Before joining politics, Omar Abdullah worked with ITC Limited in its International Business Division. He was posted in Hyderabad and Mumbai. In 1998, at the age of 29, Omar Abdullah was elected to 12th Lok Sabha, becoming the youngest minister. In 1998-99, he was a member of both the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Ministry of Tourism's Consultative Committee. In 1999, he was elected to 13th Lok Sabha (2nd term as a Member of Parliament). On October 13, 1999 he took oath as Union Minister of State, Commerce and Industry. On July 22, 2001, he became the youngest Union Minister, when he was made Union Minister of State for External affairs. He resigned from the post on December 23, 2002, to concentrate on party work.

On June 23, 2002, he became the President of the National Conference party, replacing his father, Farooq Abdullah.

He lost his Ganderbal seat in the Kashmir assembly elections held in September–October 2002.

Abdullah was re-elected as the National Conference party's president in 2006.

In March 2006, much to the disapproval of the centre, Omar Abdullah had a one-on-one meeting with Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharaf, in Islamabad. This was the first meeting of its kind between a mainstream politician from Jammu & Kashmir and the Pakistani government, thereby re-enforcing Omar's growing commitment to the solution of the Jammu & Kashmir cause. Omar received a rousing reception by thousands of Kashmiris upon his return.

On July 9, 2007, Omar escaped a bid on his life when suspected militants threw two rifle grenades targeted at him. The incident happened when Omar was interacting with party workers at a party leader's house.

On July 22, 2008, Omar gave a passionate speech during the 2008 Lok Sabha vote of confidence, which was praised by almost all quarters, and even won him fans on the internet. He was also seen briefly, playing himself, in director Apoorva Lakhia’s film, Mission Istanbul (2008), based on international terrorism.

After the 2008 Kashmir Elections, the National Conference won the maximum number of seats, and formed a coalition government with the Congress party, and Omar was sworn in as the 11th Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir on January 5, 2009 at the General Zoravar Singh Stadium in the University of Jammu, Jammu, raising hope amongst the people of Jammu and Kashmir who had been reeling under insurgency and violence since 1989.

Criticism

After Abdullah assumed the office of Chief Minister on 5 January 2009, the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir deteriorated.

Within his first six months in the office, Indian Paramilitary Forces, specifically the Central Reserve Police Force, were accused of killing at least fifteen civilians, including three women whom they were also accused of raping. The first killing took place barely a few hundred meters away from the residence of Omar Abdullah, only two days after he was sworn in as Chief Minister of the state. The victim, Abdul Rashid Rishi, 45, a deaf man from South Kashmir’s Pahalgam, was shot dead by the Central Reserve Police Force on January 7, 2009. The killings at Bomai, Khaigam, Baramulla and the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian invoked severe public anger, and resulted in valley-wide protests, and reiterated demands for freedom and removal of Indian Paramilitary Forces from Jammu and Kashmir.

In the subsequent days, hundreds of protesters, including opposition leaders, were beaten up, and many were arrested or detained under a controversial Public Safety Act. On 8 July 2009 alone, PTI reported that "...police has arrested over 320 people..." who according to police were "fomenting trouble". Police slapped minor charges of disturbing peace to serious offences like that under section 307 (attempt of murder) on those arrested. An editorial in Greater Kashmir noted about this situation that "...ever since the new government took over the state administration has not only been handling every situation ineptly but also ridiculously... (administration) has been detaining and slapping Public Safety Acts against the voices of dissent and disagreement on absurd and ludicrous grounds that have made it a laughing stock within and outside the state...". According to official statistics, 554 persons were detained under PSA in Jammu and Kashmir from January 2008 to August 2009. Ironically, the Law and parliamentary affairs minister, Ali Mohammad Sagar said that invoking of PSA is necessary for running the affairs of the State.

Omar Abdullah was also accused of covering up the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian, which was allegedly perpetrated by Indian Paramilitary Forces. A. G. Noorani, a prominent lawyer and a commentator on regional affairs stated that Abdullah "needed prodding by the Centre even to order registration of a First Information Report... this testifies the gravity of Omar Abdullah’s lapses... (and) reveals the mindset that he will follow the tradition firmly established by his father, Farooq Abdullah..."

Conversely, there have been claims that the two women who were found dead were not raped and/or murdered. The CBI has said in its chargesheet filed before a court in Srinagar that Aasiya was a virgin and that both women drowned. The CBI investigation has declared that doctors in the district hospital had fiddled with the port-mortem report and fabricated evidence to implicate the security forces. However, majority of media opinion and that of the public is against this view, who regards this defense as a mere cover-up for the case. The case is still ongoing.

References

External links

Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:University of Mumbai alumni Category:Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Category:Indian politicians Category:Jammu and Kashmir politicians Category:Jammu and Kashmir MLAs Category:13th Lok Sabha members Category:14th Lok Sabha members Category:Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Category:Kashmiri people Category:People from Jammu and Kashmir Category:Jammu & Kashmir National Conference politicians Category:Lawrence School, Sanawar alumni

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