Posted on 07/01/2008 10:14:11 AM PDT by gandalftb
The leader of the Taliban, has reportedly had a makeover and been sighted on numerous occasions in Pakistan.
Mullah Omar has changed his appearance since he fled from Afghanistan. Mullah Mohammed Zaher says he has personally met with the reclusive jihadist several times in Quetta, Pakistan.
He says the Taliban founder has turfed his trademark turban, trimmed his beard and begun wearing sunglasses.
"He does not look like a Talib anymore. He does not even wear a turban."
Zaher says Omar has several safe houses in the Quetta area.
"I used to meet him. I have seen his home," Zaher said through a Pashto-language interpreter.
"He used to call us over."
He says Omar is now a religious imam and has led Friday prayer services at a mosque next to a medical clinic in Quetta's Saleem plaza.
He says Omar has even spent the night on a military compound in the Nawakilli area near Quetta, where he says he and other militants received bomb-making lessons from members of the Pakistani army.
He says old Taliban friends contacted him and put him in touch with Pakistani military officials, who trained him and paid him $500 a month to join the insurgency.
He says he left the insurgency a little over two years ago, and moved back to Kandahar city's District Six.
Zaher says he has not seen or spoken to Omar since then.
When asked how it could be possible that the Americans would still be searching for Omar despite all these supposed sightings, Zaher grows cross.
His voice rising to a near-shout, he lays out a cynical conspiracy theory that appears to be remarkably popular even among ordinary Afghans:
"Nobody wants to catch him!"
(Excerpt) Read more at canadianpress.google.com ...
In the last two years, Omar has virtually disappeared but is likely in Quetta, sheltered by rogue elements of the Paki ISI.

Get yourself a pair of cheap sunglasses...............
ping
>.rogue elements of the Paki ISI.
Um, there are no rogue elements.
Queer Eye for the Mullah Guy?
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(The writer was a special assistant to Afghanistan's former defence minister Ahmad Shah Massoud.)
You know, it’d be ironic while all eyes(OK OK, just a few of us) are on Iran and points east, the Turkish State does a somersault.
The authorities arrested a couple of generals, don’t think they were simply riding in a CoupeDeVille.
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