By Ray Rivera and Carlotta Gall, New York Times, May 23/24, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban said Monday that their reclusive leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was still very much alive and “leading the mujahedeen in all aspects,” disputing reports from inside Afghanistan’s intelligence agency indicating that he had been killed in Pakistan last week.[...]

Rumors of Mullah Omar’s death spread quickly in Kabul after Tolo TV, a major news channel here, citing an unnamed source inside the intelligence agency, reported Monday that the Taliban leader was shot dead late last week. According to the news report, the killing occurred as he was being moved from Quetta — the southern Pakistani city where he and other senior Taliban leaders known as the Quetta Shura are suspected of hiding — to North Waziristan by a former Pakistani intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul.

A source inside the security directorate, speaking on the condition of anonymity, provided similar details to The New York Times. But reached by telephone in Pakistan, General Gul laughed at the reports and called them baseless. “Was I killed too?” he said. “Am I speaking to you from heaven?”[....]