KABUL, Afghanistan, July 20 (UPI) -- There were reports Wednesday of the death of Mullah Omar but the Afghan Taliban said their leader was alive and its phones and Web site had been hacked.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Nujahid denied the text messages that were sent saying the group's reclusive leader had died, CNN reported.
Mullah Omar is alive and the reports "are just propaganda against our leader and our mission," the spokesman was quoted as saying.
NATO said it had no operational knowledge of Omar's condition or his whereabouts, the report said.
There was a similar report about Omar's death in May and then too the Taliban denied it, calling it claims and rumors from the "Kabul stooge regime's intelligence directorate."
At the time, a spokesman for the Afghanistan intelligence agency had said Omar had disappeared but could not confirm if he was dead.
Some Afghan television channel in May had said Omar was killed en route from Quetta to North Waziristan in Pakistan.
Omar was close to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who was killed May 2 by U.S. forces in a raid on his compound in Pakistan's garrison town of Abbottabad, northeast of Islamabad.
