When US forces entered Afghanistan in 2001 as punishment for the 9/11 attacks, Mullah Omer, the mysterious and reclusive one-eyed founder of the Taliban, once hid his personal vehicle by burying it.
Mullah Omar, who was born in 1960 in the southern Afghan district of Kandahar, lost his right eye while fighting alongside Afghan forces in the 1980s against the Soviet army.
Some stories state that the Taliban leader cut out his own injured eye, while another state that he received medical care at a hospital in a neighboring nation. The Taliban have now unearthed the founder’s car in Zabul province, 21 years after it was buried there. When Mullah Omar arrived from Kandahar in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, he buried the Toyota car.
The automobile was discovered mostly unharmed and wrapped in plastic. However, a local said that the front mirror was shattered. The Afghan National Museum will shortly showcase the automobile. Omar brought the Taliban to power in Kabul in 1996, but they were overthrown in 2001 by an assault spearheaded by the US. Omar was seen by the Taliban as a pillar of unity during their uprising against the Afghan government and foreign troops. His passing in 2013—reportedly brought on by a disease—was kept a secret by the organisation until July 2015.
