Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar is 'dead', claims BBC

The report said the militant group has not commented on the claim.

The Taliban leader died two to three years ago, Afghan government and intelligence sources said.

A Taliban spokesman contacted by the BBC said the group would issue a statement shortly.

In April this year, the Taliban had issued a statement saying the head of Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, Mullah Omar, is alive and in touch with current events, the group has said in a 5,000 word document released to mark his nineteenth year of leadership.

Published on a Taliban website in four languages, the account addresses rumors the reclusive one-eyed leader, in hiding for over a decade, is either dead or seriously ill.

“He remains in touch with the day-to-day happenings of his country, as well as the outside world,” the document says.

The U.S. State Department has a $10 million bounty on Mullah Omar’s head and the Taliban leader has not appeared in public since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.