Ahlul Bayt News Agency - The leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has died, Afghan officials say, but the militant group has not commented on the claim.
The reclusive leader died two to three years ago, Afghan government and intelligence sources said. No further details were released.
A Taliban spokesman contacted by the BBC said the group would issue a statement shortly.
There have been several reports of Mullah Omar's death in the past. The Pakistani authorities said Mullah Omar had died two years ago but no further details were given regarding the circumstances surrounding his death, the report said.
There was no word on the issue from the Afghan Taliban, whose representatives recently held talks for the first time with top Afghan officials in the Pakistani resort of Murree.
The development comes close on the heels of the claim by a splinter group of the Taliban – the Afghanistan Islamic Movement Fidai Mahaz – that Mullah Omar was killed by Taliban leaders Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor and Gull Agha.
The splinter group’s spokesman Qari Hamza said Mullah Omar was killed two years ago in July 2013.
Hamza claimed his group had evidence to prove its claims that Mullah Omar was killed by Mansoor and Agha.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s spy agency, had said last November that Mullah Omar had possibly died and his group has split into three factions.
On July 15, a message purportedly from Mullah Omar appeared for the first time to signal approval for peace talks with the Afghan government. It represented the first word in the name of Mullah Omar on the budding peace process that has split the Afghan Taliban.
The statement posted on a website linked to the Taliban did not include audio or a video.
However, Mullah Omar has not been seen in public since the US-led intervention in 2001. Some disgruntled Taliban factions have suggested he is dead or very ill and others may be making statements in his name.
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