Mullah Omar's Death Confirmed By Taliban

Taliban officials have confirmed Mullah Omar died in Afghanistan in 2013, as the group elects a new leader.

The one-eyed cleric, who sheltered Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in the years leading up to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, had not been seen in public since fleeing Afghanistan on a motorbike in 2001.

But he remained an important and unifying figure for his followers.

Abdul Hassib Sediqi, spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, said Omar had died in Pakistan.

"He was very sick in a Karachi hospital and died suspiciously there," he said.

But a Taliban spokesman told Sky News he had, in fact, died in Afghanistan on 23 April, 2013.

"The leadership of the Islamic Emirate and the family of Mullah Omar ... announce that leader Mullah Omar died due to sickness."

There have been rumours of the cleric's demise in the past but this time, as well as the confirmation from the Taliban and the Afghanistan government, the US has also described the reports as "credible".

Omar was born in the southern Uruzgan province in the early 1960s and became a mullah in Kandahar, taking up arms when the former Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan in 1979.

He became the Taliban leader in 1989, after the Soviet war ended, and the group took power in Afghanistan during 1996.

Pakistan has also made no comment on Omar's death, and has always denied he was housed in the country.

The seven-member Taliban Shura has chosen a new leader - Mullah Akhtar Mansoor - during a meeting in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

Mansoor had been Omar's deputy for the past three years.

Siraj Haqqani, leader of the powerful Haqqani militant faction, will be Mansoor's deputy.

It remains to be seen what the group's next move will be - they are believed to be split on continuing the war or negotiating with the Afghan government under President Ashraf Ghani.

Peace talks due to be held between the Afghan government and the Taliban this week have been postponed.

Earlier in July the two groups had their first face-to-face talks in Islamabad.